RALEIGH, N.C., Aug. 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Bandwidth Inc.
(NASDAQ: BAND), a software company focused on communications for
the enterprise, today announced their partnership and participation
in a North Carolina State University
research study of robocalling campaigns. The unique, data-driven
initiative produced new insights into fraudulent traffic patterns,
the results of which are published in the paper, Who's Calling?
Characterizing Robocalls through Audio and Metadata
Analysis.
Bandwidth authorized the use of a SIP trunk and 66,606 phone
numbers to the university to support the research. The phone
numbers had been previously disconnected by Bandwidth's fraud
mitigation team due to egregious violations of the company's
Acceptable Use Policy. The NCSU research team established data
collection on various call traffic parameters that were available
through call detail records (CDRs) and SIP signalling.
The study, which ran from February
2019 to January 2020, revealed
surprising results. For instance, researchers noted that the number
of fraudulent robocalling campaigns did not increase over time but
remained steady over the course of the 11-month study. This
contradicts previous assertions that robocalling was on the rise
prior to the global shutdown during COVID-19. In addition, industry
insiders and the media have often cautioned consumers against
answering suspicious calls over concerns this results in an
increase of calls sent in the future. However, the study
found that when calls were answered, the volume of robocalls to
those numbers did not increase over time.
Bandwidth has been an active and influential participant in the
telecommunications industry's push towards reestablishing trust in
the communications between legitimate businesses and their
customers. The company implemented a STIR/SHAKEN solution within
their Tier-1 network at the end of 2019, and has since completed
interoperability with major carriers to allow the exchange of
signed traffic with Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and, most recently,
Comcast. The company is currently developing new STIR/SHAKEN
solutions for certificate delegation, transit identity service, and
verification services to help its customers protect legitimate
traffic. The FCC requires service providers to implement
STIR/SHAKEN by June 30, 2021.
"We want to abolish robocalling entirely, and a project of this
scope puts us one step closer to achieving that," said David Morken, founder and CEO of Bandwidth.
"NC State's research has expanded our
understanding of the origins and behavior of fraudulent traffic
traversing the world's telecom networks. This research helps us
examine the differences between unlawful robocalling campaigns and
legitimate voice traffic. We believe data-driven analysis like this
will one day make it easier for carriers and service providers to
traceback the source of these fraudulent calls and intervene with
call blocking techniques faster."
"What was exciting was that we were able to identify calls that
were identical or nearly identical, allowing us to group calls into
groups that were clearly all affiliated with a single campaign,"
said Brad Reaves, co-author of a
paper on the work and an assistant professor of computer science at
NC State. "So, effectively you can
narrow down a big chunk of robocalls to only a few campaigns. And
you can track those down. That's a subject we'll be discussing at
greater length in the future."
NC State's paper, Who's Calling?
Characterizing Robocalls through Audio and Metadata Analysis,
won a Distinguished Paper Award at the 2020 USENIX Security
Symposium, landing in the top 1% of submissions. It also won First
Place Internet Defense Prize from Facebook, which includes an
unrestricted gift to promote future work.
To learn more about how Bandwidth has implemented STIR/SHAKEN
and signs legitimate voice traffic on behalf of carriers and
service providers, read the article, What is STIR/SHAKEN and How
Does it Impact Robocalling.
About Bandwidth:
Bandwidth (NASDAQ: BAND) is a software company focused on
communications for the enterprise. Companies like Google,
Microsoft, Cisco, Zoom, and RingCentral use Bandwidth's APIs to
easily embed voice, messaging and 911 access into software and
applications. Bandwidth is the first and only CPaaS provider
offering a robust selection of communications APIs built around
their own nationwide IP voice network – one of the largest in the
nation. More information is available at www.bandwidth.com.
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SOURCE Bandwidth Inc.