Machine learning technologies, alongside 5G service will be instrumental in detecting and preventing roaming fraud
New findings from roaming experts Kaleido Intelligence predicts that losses arising from mobile roaming fraud will peak in 2025, reaching $18 billion in value, before declining to $13 billion by 2028. As cyber threats evolve, necessitating resilient fraud management measures, advanced tools to detect and prevent malicious activities, real-time fraud detection systems and 5G security features will collectively minimise roaming fraud losses.
The new research, Roaming Fraud Strategies & Forecasts 2023, found a growing significance of analytics and machine learning in managing roaming fraud for mobile operators. It highlighted the critical need to employ advanced network analytics to enhance security, particularly in addressing the challenge of roaming fraud in the 5G landscape. Kaleido’s latest mobile operator signalling security survey found that a significant 50% of respondents consider fraud and roaming to be the most challenging security aspects to mitigate in 5G.
Mobileum, Syniverse & BICS Leads Roaming Fraud Management Vendor Scores
According to Kaleido’s latest Roaming Vendor Hub 2023, Mobelium, Syniverse and BICS lead the overall Kaleido score for roaming fraud management service offerings. These industry leaders have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to ensure the reliability and security of roaming services, as well as fraud detection and risk management.
Dawnn Dinsey, Research Analyst at Kaleido Intelligence said: “Amid the era of 5G roaming, prioritising fraud management is crucial to safeguard the dependability and efficiency of roaming services. Leading vendors specialising in roaming fraud management are committed to providing a secure pathway that effectively addresses both existing and evolving fraud threats. Their primary goal is to enhance service reliability and security, particularly tailored to meet the demands of emerging 5G and IoT devices”.
Voice to Account for 54% of Roaming Fraud Losses in 2028
Roaming fraud has historically been a key source of revenue for fraudsters, due to the high margins achievable through bypass and Wangiri attacks. Kaleido’s report found that roaming voice fraud is likely to account for 54% of roaming fraud revenue losses in 2028, even as mobile networks migrate to packet-switched technologies such as VoLTE and VoNR, with lower termination rates applied for packet-switched services.
Kaleido noted both SIM box fraud and International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF) continue to plague the roaming industry. IRSF exploits international routing and billing systems to inflate a high volume of calls or messages to premium rate international premium rate numbers set up by fraudsters. The continued growth of Roam Like At Home bundles, even outside Europe, has added additional incentives for fraudsters across both voice and SMS channels.
Above, photo by Paul Hanaoka on unsplash
