Software Vaccine Eradicates SMS Spoofing

SMS Spoofing is an emerging security threat in the GSM community and carries with it serious fraud implications if not immediately addressed. Openmind Networks has designed, engineering and deployed an industry leading product called Protect that eliminates the threat of SMS Spoofing.

Dublin, Ireland, September 05, 2008 --(PR.com)-- Cathal Fitzpatrick, VP Product Management of Openmind Networks today announced the release of the definitive white paper on SMS Spoofing. Having monitored the increase in SMS Spoofing attacks among our own customer base and also on mobile industry message boards, Mr. Fitzpatrick prepared the white paper to demonstrate how the threat of SMS Spoofing can be eradicated using Protect from Openmind Networks.

"Fraudsters have turned their attentions to mobile operator controlled networks and are using increasingly sophisticated fraudulent techniques to target the network and its subscribers. The GSM community has identified a number of fraudulent techniques but SMS Spoofing is the issue most seriously impacting operator revenues,” said Cathal Fitzpatrick, VP Product Management at Openmind Networks. “SMS Spoofing occurs when a fraudster manipulates address information in order to impersonate a user that has roamed onto a foreign network and is submitting messages to the home network.”

The net effect of SMS Spoofing is to cause serious economic and brand damage to the targeted mobile operator network. The main effects are listed below:

o Revenue leakage: The home network will incur termination charges caused by the delivery of these messages to interconnect partners.

o Interconnect problems: Interconnect partners may threaten to cut-off the home network with the result that home subscribers will be unable to send messages into these networks.

o Loss of bill integrity: Genuine subscribers may be billed for roaming messages they did not send leading to bill shock and churn.

o Resource constraints: Assigning highly skilled and scarce resources to fight the threat.

“The only 100%-sure way of detecting and blocking spoofed messages is to screen incoming mobile originated messages to verify that the sender is a valid subscriber and that the message is coming from a valid and correct location. Our Protect product does just that and eradicates the SMS Spoofing threat,” added Fitzpatrick. “The functionality that we offer via Protect is beyond the capabilities of legacy messaging infrastructure and as mobile operators look for solutions to safeguard and protect their networks and subscribers, Openmind Networks is perfectly placed to provide the ideal solution.”

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Openmind Networks
Michael O'Brien
+353872441044
www.openmindnetworks.com
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How to Stop SMS Spoofing

How to Stop SMS Spoofing

SMS Spoofing occurs when a fraudster manipulates address information in order to impersonate a user that has roamed onto a foreign network and is submitting messages to the home network.

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