Last year the Risk & Assurance Group (RAG) surpassed all expectations by running an online survey about leakage and crime which received responses from 175 professionals working for comms providers. The results grabbed the attention of many more, with telcos and their customers reportedly losing USD142bn per annum because of accidental mistakes and deliberate frauds. This year’s survey intends to go even further:
- the survey covers cybersecurity, revenue assurance and fraud management;
- by asking 16 key questions which can be answered in less than 7 minutes;
- as selected by a panel of comms industry experts drawn from every continent; and
- is sponsored by a leading global provider of security, risk and assurance products.
The RAG Digital Trust Survey for Revenue Assurance, Fraud Management and Cyber Security (RAFMCS) Professionals has a long title but the underlying concept is simple: we will not effectively reduce the losses that comms providers suffer as a consequence of security breaches, errors, software glitches and frauds unless we promote teamwork between security, fraud and assurance functions. Many telcos have combined some or all of these risk management silos and one goal of the survey is to understand how often these responsibilities sit within unified departments. However, theories about how to mitigate risk are unimportant if there is no data to support them. What really matters is getting the largest possible sample in order to get the best possible estimate of industry losses and the best possible understanding of risk priorities. That is why this RAFMCS survey also differs from others by:
- being completely anonymous, so every respondent can submit answers without worrying about how their information will be used; and
- publicly sharing all the raw data when the survey is complete, so anyone can perform their own analysis of the results.
RAG is able to do this thanks to the support of this year’s survey sponsors, Subex.
The RAFMCS survey will run for just one month, until October 15. But why wait for that deadline when you can respond right now? The questionnaire can be found below as well as being on the RAG website.
Updated 16 October 2021: The survey has now closed. All of the survey data will be collated, analyzed and then published on this page of the RAG website at the beginning of November.
