Gabriele Lieser
CUSTOMER SUCCESS MANAGER
Summary
The real COVID-19 virus, of all things, helped its malicious counterparts that are made of bits and bytes to achieve enormous relevance last year. It forced people to work from home, where they were sometimes ill-prepared, and where the number of possible cyber-attacks multiplied. Protecting employees at home has posed new challenges, as has the question of how to deal with a possible data breach. Writing a disaster manual at an early stage is the first choice here, as is the careful selection of a strong signaling firewall.
Continuously optimizing configurations has become more and more self-evident, especially for MNOs. Fortunately, it is easy to implement with the help of the RoamsysNext Wholesale Roaming Manager and Network Configuration Optimizer. As fraud challenges are skyrocketing, we all need to work smarter together and contribute to collaborative solutions. To address all of this, the GSMA MISP and other tools are contributing to the great progress.
In RoamsysNext Insights our experts share their views on extensive industry topics and possible solutions we can offer.
The news that Microsoft published at the turn of the year was not good. Of all things, the world’s largest software company had to admit that hackers had penetrated its inner sanctum to steal top-secret source codes. If there is one highly explosive topic of 2020 beyond COVID-19, it is cybersecurity, which will continue to keep the world on its toes. There is a lot of work ahead, and fraud analysts and investigators are not going to have an easy time keeping control of the threat landscape. Current applications require a lot of manual integration of large amounts of threat data into security tools, teams and processes. Since we all know that time and correct data are precious in the fight against telecom fraud, we should really start to systematically help each other by sharing fraud information and closing existing gaps!
How to Work Smart from Home
The pandemic has given digitilization an enormous boost. It creates new opportunities, but also poses new challenges for companies as it greatly increases the attack surface for cyberattacks. In addition to the usual security measures, RoamsysNext’s tools help to work just as efficiently from home and process sensitive information about roaming partners correctly and quickly.
With the Wholesale Roaming Manager, for instance, we help roaming coordinators, commercial teams, operations teams and management achieve their business goals quickly and elegantly. Roaming activities are monitored, users are given the appropriate access permissions, custom password policies are enforced, and end-to-end encryption keeps data private. Read article
Face the Breach: Rehearse an Emergency Before it Happens
Cybersecurity is a constant tug-of-war against criminal attacks, and like everywhere else in the world, there is no such thing as 100% security or 100% protection. Cybersecurity experts therefore advise companies to have emergency plans in place in the event of a security breach and, most importantly, not to wait until they are in the middle of it. To respond to future incidents, a dedicated team needs to discuss various disaster scenarios, consider remediation measures, and determine internal and external communications in the event of a successful attack.
What are the three most important assets that, if destroyed, held for ransom or leaked, would significantly disrupt the network? The disaster manual must also state how vigorously to act: In an emergency, it might be necessary to flip the kill switch and shut down all data. And how about the recovery phase? The communication at that point will determine the company’s reputation for years to come. By telling customers how they can best reach out for information, the loss of trust is kept to a minimum. Read article
How to choose a signaling firewall wisely
Since mobile subscribers have very limited possibilities to ensure their own security, most of the security work has to be done at the provider level. Most attacks are designed to target the provider’s core network, and vulnerabilities in SS7 and Diameter networks for signaling are well documented. Fortunately, with a robust signaling firewall, MNOs have a comprehensive insurance policy to block known threats and detect unknown threats.
Implementing a signaling firewall solution that follows GSMA recommendations is the best possible start. The guidelines GSMA FS.11, FS.19 and FS.20 for SS7, Diameter and GTP-C firewall security are important to consider before making an informed decision. Vendors should offer a telco-grade product and be able to offer the five nines indicator as standard, as well as high availability and redundancy, where the vendor hardware is always backed up. Therefore, the new signaling firewall solution provider should always be one step ahead of the times and provide updates at the earliest possible time to identify and eliminate the latest threat vectors. The proactive search for vulnerabilities protects the customer from future threats and qualifies the provider for a good and long-term cooperation. Read article
Avoid configuration errors
Configuration errors can cause serious problems in any network, and they are not just annoying: cleanup comes with significant losses in time, revenue and subscriber trust. Maintaining security requires “configuration hardening”, i.e. creating secure and compliant configuration settings and finding suitable tools to automate the monitoring, configuration and assessment of the firewall body of rules. Firewalls should really only grant the minimum access needed by each user and not risk vulnerabilities. Isn’t it easier to extend firewall rules and allow additional access than to have chaos after a security breach?
But there are three more ways to bliss: try to automate processes as much as you can, monitor your firewall’s security logs and enforce centralized authentication mechanisms. Whenever firewall configuration and the prevention of misconfigurations is performed continuously, dynamically and on a high level, you have already achieved a lot.
Wholesale Roaming Manager
Managing service openings sounds like a complex task, and it truly is. What enormous amounts of sensitive data need to be brought in and managed securely! RoamsysNext’s Wholesale Roaming Manager provides collaboration tools that clearly map roaming partner relationships, from trial SIM cards to tariff, document and contact management. An intuitive interface ensures that implementations are carried out quickly and efficiently. Complete visibility into service openings is essential for managers, team leaders, or coordinators who need regular reports. Connections by service, by status, country and service coverage connection reports, and service-level reports (e.g., 5G and all new services) can be accessed.
All in all, Wholesale Roaming Manager encompasses everything needed to drive additional revenue. With an all-in-one solution, there is finally a central location for all relevant information and documents to monitor roaming activities, it has become very easy to gain insights and make value-based decisions. Read article
Network Configuration Optimizer
Just the thought of tracking network configurations per partner IR.21 document received or manually checking updates in IR.21s can give users the creeps. Since not all changes in an IR.21 are relevant for network node configuration certain rules on section and subsection level can be set up to stay focused on the important stuff. The RoamsysNext Network Configuration Optimizer greatly improves the tracking of network configurations per partner IR.21 document received. It tracks down missing or incorrect configurations and configures only relevant data to protect SS7 and IP networks.
Further audits are necessary to ensure that the right configurations are implemented in each network node. With the Network Configuration Optimizer, it is also easier for a parent company to coordinate and monitor the performance of network update procedures of member networks. Good accessibility for inbound and outbound roamers creates a better perception of quality, a better subscriber experience and fewer contract hoppers. Read article
The GSMA MISP helps
Malicious actors are becoming more organized, more sophisticated, and ultimately more brazen. As a result, MNOs are struggling with cyber attacks because previously powerful defense methods and tools are becoming less effective. But here’s a thought: instead of every company upgrading its defenses and accumulating costs, wouldn’t it be a good idea to shift some of it around and share threat data? This comes in handy when fraudsters launch successful attacks on similar organizations. Sharing information between trusted partners and trusted groups prevents fraud incidents from recurring and makes attackers‘ lives miserable. In terms of cybersecurity and fraud prevention, the GSMA already provides a number of useful tools and information through its Fraud and Security Group (FASG), guidelines on best practice countermeasures, the MISP (Malware Information Sharing Platform) and the T-ISAC (Telecommunication Information Sharing and Analysis Centre) initiative. Read article
The GSMA MISP for the mobile industry was implemented jointly with the prestigious Luxembourg CIRCL (Computer Incident Response Center Luxembourg, circl.lu). Many different types of users take advantage of an information sharing platform like MISP to manage their daily work, e.g. security analysts, malware reversers, intelligence analysts, law enforcement teams, risk analysis teams and fraud analysts. The core functionality of MISP is sharing. Anyone can be a consumer and/or a contributor/producer. The GSMA MISP is a tool that has been designed as transparent as possible to build and maintain trust and to support contributors. At the end of the day, don’t we all pull together to provide seamless accessibility, great quality perception and a unique customer experience for all of our subscribers? Read article
If You say Digitilization, You must also say Security
The fraud pressure on MNOs is growing, especially with the technology shift to 5G. Artificial intelligence, IoT and self-steering factories are likely to ensure that the economy no longer develops in a purely linear fashion, but by leaps and bounds or even exponentially. It may soon be too late to get involved in high quality fraud prevention and detection. However, Corona has shown how quickly institutions can change when the house is on fire. In the future, the rule should be: if you say digitilization, you must also say security. Those who carelessly refrain from doing so will leave the field to others and gamble. With the help of the latest technologies and together with the GSMA, we are already working on a great solution. Very soon, there will be an easy-to-use platform where you can find the details of high-risk numbers, suspicious number ranges, MCC/MNC codes and operator IP ranges in a very automated and curated way. Stay tuned!
Since 2009, RoamsysNext has specialized in software development and project management as the GSMA’s exclusive provider of RAEX solutions. We also offer the only GSMA-compliant hub solution on the market and provide our customers with excellent service and competitive pricing. With our Wholesale Roaming Manager, we help MNOs bring together information and relationships with roaming partners in a precise and secure way – with an all-in-one solution from test SIM cards to tariff, document and contact management. In addition, we help to strengthen the core network by detecting missing and incorrect configurations and vulnerabilities with the Network Configuration Optimizer. Further audits are essential to ensure that the correct configurations are implemented in every network node.
More than 700 MNOs around the world already rely on our tools and services. If you are interested in our products contact us at info@roamsys.com. We will be happy to help you, and we will always find a great solution for your requests.
Gabriele Lieser joined RoamsysNext in 2020 as Customer Success Manager to strengthen the bonds with our increasing number of customers and to support the marketing team. Gabriele has a strong background in corporate sales. She studied at the Universities of Trier (Germany) and Manitoba (Canada) and is incorporated in the RoamsysNext Client Service team.
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