Written by Amy Ralls | Jun 15, 2022 4:00:00 AM
Five Layers of Protection Guard Against Nefarious Vishing and Unwanted Nuisance Calls
Chicago, IL - June 15, 2022 -
Mutare, Inc., a leading innovator of enterprise solutions that reimagine how businesses securely communicate, today released several new features for the
Mutare Voice Traffic Filter to stop voice network threats at the network edge. These updates create five distinct layers of voice network protection that deliver unprecedented control over the security and integrity of voice traffic flowing into and out of an organization. Nine percent of all calls received by enterprises are unwanted with four percent tied to nefarious traffic, according to
Mutare’s analysis of enterprise-wide call data. Most organizations are unaware of the levels of unwanted voice traffic and the related cyber threats to company security and staff productivity. To address this issue, the Mutare Voice Traffic Filter builds in five layers of overlapping protections to stop these threats at the network edge and immediately remove nefarious or unwanted nuisance calls from hitting the voice network. These five layers include:
- Proprietary Dynamic Database – Integrates data from worldwide resources to identify calls as known spam, spoofing, scams, or robocalls. As bad actors and unwanted callers constantly revise their calling numbers and attack strategies, the Proprietary Dynamic Database is continuously updated in real time to stay ahead of new attack vectors.
- Threat Radar – This multi-tiered system detects atypical calling patterns consistent with nefarious calls. Threat Radar combines analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to find malicious calls based on unique behaviors and number patterns that fall outside the normal voice traffic activity for most organizations.
- Custom Rules – Organizations can create their own specific lists for blocked numbers and allowed numbers, based on their unique call-handling rules for certain types of numbers. These rules can be applied to govern both incoming and outgoing calls.
- Voice CAPTCHA – This extra layer of protection routes suspicious calls to be quarantined for additional vetting. By challenging callers to enter random digits before a call will be connected, Voice CAPTCHA effectively filters out bots from real human callers.
- STIR/SHAKEN Compliance Analysis – Based on calling data provided by carriers, the Voice Traffic Filter can be configured to examine STIR/SHAKEN attestation scores to determine if a call is valid or spoofed.
“As vishing and social engineering attacks continue to threaten the vulnerable voice network in organizations, Mutare has developed an essential firewall to protect enterprise voice networks against the dangerous intrusions of nefarious calls and nuisance calls,” said Chuck French, Chief Growth Officer at Mutare. “The updated Mutare Voice Traffic Filter dramatically reduces cybersecurity risk, improves network reliability, and protects employees and their performances.” The Mutare Voice Traffic Filter (version 3.4) includes several other notable updates for threat detection, including the newly released Threat Radar. This proprietary system uses machine learning and analytics to identify and block specific call patterns consistent with potential nefarious activity – such as spike attacks, spam storms, and neighbor spoofing. Threat Radar features expanded functionality based on three distinct components, including:
- Volume Limiter, which protects against network overload by limiting the number of calls concentrated over a specified time.
- Storm Detector, which recognizes when high numbers of calls from similar Caller IDs enter the system over a short period, signaling a potential “spam storm” attack.
- Spoof Radar, which recognizes when an unusual number of calls enter the system with Caller IDs that closely match the internal called number, indicating a potential “neighbor spoofing” event.
The Mutare Dashboard features a redesigned display for deeper visibility of unwanted call detection activity. This display includes break-out numbers for Threat Radar by types of spikes detected through the Volume Limiter, Storm Detector, and Spoof Radar. In addition, new technical controls allow administrators to customize the parameters for call pattern detection, while governing the actions to drop or allow calls based on certain defined thresholds. These tools can also automatically route email alerts to designated users who should know about suspicious events. Rules Manager also includes Targeted Actions Based on Caller Name (CNAM),
which gives users the ability to recognize and apply actions (Drop, Allow, Route, or send to CAPTCHA) against calls from specific full, partial, or missing Caller ID Names (CNAM). For more information, please visit:
https://www.mutare.com/voice-traffic-filter/