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Turning Bank ID into Caller ID, whilst IMSI-Catchers Run Wild: Commsrisk Show 7

The financial sector is making all banks uniquely identifiable; the same methods could stop all imposter fraud by phone and internet.

The financial sector may have solved the global problem of how to authenticate the origin of a phone call, but the communications sector is not yet aware of it. Yesterday’s episode of The Communications Risk Show featured three stellar guests who explained how the solution would work in practice, how it could be extended to any business and then to people in general, and why central banks had to find a way of uniquely identifying each bank. Those guests were:

  • Timothy Ruff, (pictured, bottom left), General Partner at Digital Trust Ventures and an expert in self-sovereign identities, the user-controlled and decentralized approach to digital identity management;
  • Stephan Wolf (pictured, bottom center), CEO at the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), a not-for-profit entity created by the world’s central bankers; and
  • Randy Warshaw (pictured, bottom right), CEO of Provenant Inc, specialists in the authentication of electronic communications including voice calls and messages.

Regular presenters Ed Finegold, Lee Scargall and Eric Priezkalns also discussed the danger of IMSI-catchers being used for fraud following the arrest of a Malaysian citizen who drove such a device around Norway’s two largest cities. The danger is real and seemingly being imported into Europe from South East Asia, but telcos are powerless to stop it. Meanwhile, law enforcement and journalists in most countries behave as if the threat will not materialize if they choose to ignore it.

New episodes of The Communications Risk Show are broadcast every Wednesday at 4pm UK time on tv.commsrisk.com and various social media channels. Watch live to ask questions of the expert guests and the presenters. If you miss the livestream you can catch up with the recording soon after each show has ended. Yesterday’s show can also be watched below.

Eric Priezkalns
Eric Priezkalnshttp://revenueprotect.com

During his career, Eric has been a Director of Risk Management for a national telco, the Chief Executive of the Risk & Assurance Group, a Chief Marketing Officer for a software business, a consultant, a public speaker and the publisher of Commsrisk since its launch in 2006. Look here for more about the history of Commsrisk and the role played by Eric.

The comms providers that Eric has worked for include Qatar Telecom, Cable & Wireless, T‑Mobile, Sky and Worldcom. In addition to his proficiency at speaking about the current scamdemic, Eric is also a qualified chartered accountant and a subject matter expert in consumer protection, enterprise risk management, fraud prevention, data integrity and billing accuracy. Eric was the lead author of Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers, published by CRC Press. He can be reached through the contact form on this website.

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The Commsrisk Global Fraud Dashboard


Our Global Fraud Dashboard uses AI-powered search to collate, update and visualize data about scams and other network abuses from around the world. New charts are added each month. See it here.

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