RAG Learning Celebrates Third Birthday and Offers New Course on Roaming SMS Fraud

RAG Learning, the online education platform from the Risk & Assurance Group, celebrates three years of operation this month and we are honouring the occasion by launching a new course. The course is titled “Handling Roaming SMS Fraud” and covers common fraud scenarios in roaming SMS.

The first part of the course describes SMSC bypass and how to combat it, while the second is based on a presentation by Günter Haberkorn of Deutsche Telekom Security that details A2P SMS termination rate bypass. Bypassing termination rates for A2P SMS messages is on the rise, as was discussed in a recent episode of RAG TV. Various methods used by fraudsters and ways to detect and stop this phenomenon are examined, as well as the impact of Roam Like Home (RLH) policies and the risk of retail rates being lower than wholesale rates.

This is the eleventh course offered on RAG Learning. There are eight long courses from MTN Group, a video-oriented business continuity course from BCP Builder and one other short course from RAG.

During the past year many risk, assurance and fraud colleagues in the community chose to register and enroll in courses on RAG Learning. Additionally those that wanted to showcase their new skills elected to pay the 25 US dollar processing fee in order to receive a certificate of achievement which is shareable on LinkedIn and downloadable in PDF. Seeing the numbers of registrations and enrollments is satisfying but it is even more pleasant to receive feedback from users who enjoyed the content and are grateful for the knowledge that is shared.

I would like to again encourage you to take a look at the content on RAG Learning. If you have already taken all the courses then try this new one, and tell your friends about the others. Finally, I would like to call upon all those that might have a presentation sitting on their desktop to follow the example of Günter Haberkorn by sharing it with us. Then we can transform the presentation into an online training course, with the result that its message and lessons will reach far more people.

Michael Lazarou
Michael Lazarou
Michael Lazarou manages revenue assurance and fraud at Epic, a Cypriot telco, having joined their RA function in March 2011. His background includes a double major in Computer Science and Economics, as well as an MBA. Before being lured into the exciting world of telecoms he worked as a software developer.

Michael is interested to gain a better understanding of different aspects of RA and data analysis. He shares his insights on training courses he participates in with Commsrisk. Michael's accumulated experience of online training also led him to volunteer for the role of Coordinator of the RAG Learning online education platform.