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    VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud

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    • DonahueD
      Donahue
      last edited by

      There are only 10k 4 digit pin combo's anyways. It's never been a very secure mechanism, and without some sort of lockout for too many bad guesses, it's trivial to break any pin.

      DustinB3403D scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
      • DustinB3403D
        DustinB3403 @Donahue
        last edited by

        @Donahue most phone systems have a lockout function enabled. If this phone system did or didn't I don't know. But I also don't know if a 4 digit pin was the maximum length a pin could be.

        DonahueD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • DonahueD
          Donahue @DustinB3403
          last edited by

          @DustinB3403 said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

          @Donahue most phone systems have a lockout function enabled. If this phone system did or didn't I don't know. But I also don't know if a 4 digit pin was the maximum length a pin could be.

          true

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • scottalanmillerS
            scottalanmiller @Donahue
            last edited by

            @Donahue said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

            There are only 10k 4 digit pin combo's anyways. It's never been a very secure mechanism, and without some sort of lockout for too many bad guesses, it's trivial to break any pin.

            Assuming it's a four digit limit. If so, that's on Cisco, at least that part of it.

            DustinB3403D jmooreJ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • scottalanmillerS
              scottalanmiller
              last edited by

              Not all phone systems let you rack up long distance via voicemail, either.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • DustinB3403D
                DustinB3403 @scottalanmiller
                last edited by

                @scottalanmiller said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

                @Donahue said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

                There are only 10k 4 digit pin combo's anyways. It's never been a very secure mechanism, and without some sort of lockout for too many bad guesses, it's trivial to break any pin.

                Assuming it's a four digit limit. If so, that's on Cisco, at least that part of it.

                Which honestly wouldn't be surprising. . .

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • JaredBuschJ
                  JaredBusch
                  last edited by JaredBusch

                  On this subject, Twilio blocks almost everything not NANPA by default.

                  I just checked, this is all you can call

                  North America: US & Canada
                  South America: Brazil
                  Europe: France, Germany, United Kingdom
                  Asia: India, Israel, Japan
                  Oceania: Australia/Cocos/Christmas Island

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • DustinB3403D
                    DustinB3403
                    last edited by

                    The documentation for the Cisco Unity system says there are policies that can be set for the voicemail pin, including minimum length, the duration an account is locked, if an admin has to manually unlock an account etc.

                    https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/8x/administration/guide/8xcucsagx/8xcucsag160.pdf

                    magicmarkerM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • DashrenderD
                      Dashrender @JaredBusch
                      last edited by

                      @JaredBusch said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

                      This is one of the reasons I never setup automatic funding on SIP trunks.

                      The account will run out of money before things get super out of control.

                      I have adopted this same belief. My customer who I managed their phones asked me if we could just setup auto billing - I told them yes, but then they were at the mercy of hackers if they were hacked and how high the bills would be.
                      In this case, the customer decided that 4 months of normal billing would be tolerable to loose if hacked versus having to refresh the money more often than 3 times a year.

                      i.e. let's say they spend $50/m normally. They will preload the account with $200 which should last 4 months. Now they only have to add more money three times a year, not monthly.

                      JaredBuschJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • JaredBuschJ
                        JaredBusch @Dashrender
                        last edited by

                        @Dashrender said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

                        @JaredBusch said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

                        This is one of the reasons I never setup automatic funding on SIP trunks.

                        The account will run out of money before things get super out of control.

                        I have adopted this same belief. My customer who I managed their phones asked me if we could just setup auto billing - I told them yes, but then they were at the mercy of hackers if they were hacked and how high the bills would be.
                        In this case, the customer decided that 4 months of normal billing would be tolerable to loose if hacked versus having to refresh the money more often than 3 times a year.

                        i.e. let's say they spend $50/m normally. They will preload the account with $200 which should last 4 months. Now they only have to add more money three times a year, not monthly.

                        Correct. that is how I handle it wit clients. they determine how much to pre-load, but I never let them turn on auto-renew without signing a waiver of liability. So far no one has signed it.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • scottalanmillerS
                          scottalanmiller
                          last edited by

                          Most of our customers control their own accounts, so if they pre-load or not doesn't come through us. But we never recommend just having it auto-load.

                          JaredBuschJ DashrenderD 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • JaredBuschJ
                            JaredBusch @scottalanmiller
                            last edited by

                            @scottalanmiller said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

                            Most of our customers control their own accounts, so if they pre-load or not doesn't come through us. But we never recommend just having it auto-load.

                            Some do, some do not. But when it is all set up the first time they are told that it is not allowed without signing a waiver that charges are not my problem.

                            Of course one could change it afterwards, but none have yet.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • magicmarkerM
                              magicmarker @DustinB3403
                              last edited by

                              @DustinB3403 said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

                              The documentation for the Cisco Unity system says there are policies that can be set for the voicemail pin, including minimum length, the duration an account is locked, if an admin has to manually unlock an account etc.

                              https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/8x/administration/guide/8xcucsagx/8xcucsag160.pdf

                              After the fraud, the VOIP provider has implemented stronger policies for PIN's now. I will be talking to them about implementing some sort of stoppage on international calls after they hit a certain limit. We are also going to take a hard look at turning off international calling and/or picking specific countries that we need to contact.

                              scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                              • DashrenderD
                                Dashrender @scottalanmiller
                                last edited by

                                @scottalanmiller said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

                                Most of our customers control their own accounts, so if they pre-load or not doesn't come through us. But we never recommend just having it auto-load.

                                With this customer - it's kinda 50/50. When I get the renewal notices (and they get them too) i remind them to log in or give me a CC to add more money.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • scottalanmillerS
                                  scottalanmiller @magicmarker
                                  last edited by

                                  @magicmarker said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

                                  @DustinB3403 said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

                                  The documentation for the Cisco Unity system says there are policies that can be set for the voicemail pin, including minimum length, the duration an account is locked, if an admin has to manually unlock an account etc.

                                  https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/8x/administration/guide/8xcucsagx/8xcucsag160.pdf

                                  After the fraud, the VOIP provider has implemented stronger policies for PIN's now. I will be talking to them about implementing some sort of stoppage on international calls after they hit a certain limit. We are also going to take a hard look at turning off international calling and/or picking specific countries that we need to contact.

                                  Yeah, that's pretty much all you can do. Police your own people, investigate why voicemail was allowed to do as much as it was (maybe getting off of Cisco is part of your solution, not sure how many systems are really susceptible to voicemail attacks in this manner), find out how voicemail was accessed without access to something more, have the vendor lock down anything that could explode usage that isn't needed like calls to countries that you'd never made, and put in some kind of rate limiting.

                                  There is always going to be some risk, but you can reduce it in both likeness of happening again, and in the scope of potential damage.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • scottalanmillerS
                                    scottalanmiller
                                    last edited by

                                    @JaredBusch is FreePBX susceptible to this kind of attack? On none of ours is voicemail ever the first line of defense, first of all. But even if someone breached voicemail, I don't think that they can use that to make calls. I know some systems do, and Cisco is pretty renowned for lacking security, and I might easily be overlooking something, but I feel like this isn't a normal attack vector outside of the Cisco world.

                                    coliverC A JaredBuschJ 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • coliverC
                                      coliver @scottalanmiller
                                      last edited by

                                      @scottalanmiller said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

                                      @JaredBusch is FreePBX susceptible to this kind of attack? On none of ours is voicemail ever the first line of defense, first of all. But even if someone breached voicemail, I don't think that they can use that to make calls. I know some systems do, and Cisco is pretty renowned for lacking security, and I might easily be overlooking something, but I feel like this isn't a normal attack vector outside of the Cisco world.

                                      IIRC it is possible but disable by default.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • A
                                        Alex Sage @scottalanmiller
                                        last edited by

                                        @scottalanmiller said in VOIP voicemail hacked aka DISA toll fraud:

                                        @JaredBusch is FreePBX susceptible to this kind of attack?

                                        I was wondering the same thing.

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • JaredBuschJ
                                          JaredBusch @scottalanmiller
                                          last edited by

                                          @scottalanmiller Jared Busch finished about a liter of sake last night. Ask him later.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                          • jmooreJ
                                            jmoore @scottalanmiller
                                            last edited by

                                            @scottalanmiller It may not matter here but we have an old Cisco system and our pins are 7 digit so it seems it is customizeable.

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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