A presentation given by HAUD Systems at the Asia Pacific Fraud Forum in Beijing in October 2013. Provides some insight in the extent to SMS fraud and some ways to combat this type of fraud.

1. HAUD Systems
5 Ways to Win over SMS Fraud

2. About HAUD Systems
Based in Malta (Europe) with branches in UK, Sweden and
Singapore.
Developing proprietary filtering solutions and secure
connectivity pathways for MNOs and SCCP carriers.
Started in 2011 by bringing together people from the
aggregator world and the telco environment.
Developed its first prototype by May 2011 and obtained its
first customer by the end of that year.
Constantly seeking new ways of combatting technical fraud
through its latest solutions.
Currently partnering with a number of integrators and SCCP
Carriers as well as groups of operators to roll-out the
solutions in various parts of the globe.

3. Setting the Scene
•
Application-to-person (A2P) SMS messaging will be
worth $70.1 billion by 2016,according to a white paper
from Juniper Research, May 2011.
•
P2P likely to flatten out in view of OTT messaging
services and further smartphone penetration – what
about A2P?
•
9.8 trillion text messages were sent in 2012 - Pew
Research
•
>40 sizeable aggregators in Bulk/A2P messaging and
growing.
•
> 95% of text messages received are open and read
within minutes
•
The United Kingdom Application-to-Person (A2P) SMS
market is estimated to grow from 23.48 billion in 2011
to 97.36 billion in 2016
http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/c#mobilemessaging
http://www.juniperresearch.com/viewpressrelease.php?pr=242

4. OTT vs. SMS
Over-the-Top (OTT) messaging vs. SMS messaging
OTT messages
SMS messages
MMS message
2011
3492 billion
7844 billion
207 billion
2012
5846 billion
8600 billion
228 billion
2016
20,293 billion
9554 billion
277 billion
Sources: Portio Research Febuary 2012 via: mobiThinking

5. Lost Opportunity = Lost Profits
SMS business growth has attracted spammers, fraudsters, and illegitimate users,
resulting in revenue leakages and lost profit potential for MNOs.
Asia is the largest mobile market in the world and Asia Pacific has the highest volumes
of A2P traffic per capita.
Over 700 million mobile subscribers in Africa represent the second largest mobile
market and has been growing at 20% per annum.
Over 270 million spam messages are sent every day worldwide.
95 million spam text messages are processed per day in Europe & America alone.
Some MNOs report revenue leakages of >10%. This can be much higher in certain cases!

6. The Market Reality
Consumers are not best placed to protect themselves from SMS Spam & Fraud
Marketers will always find a way to spam consumers
The activities of regulatory authorities are well-intended but not very effective in
practice and many a time they encourage self
MNOs would gain a competitive advantage (both reputation and revenue) if they
implement the necessary control measures.

7. Are you protected?
Do you have the necessary tools to recover revenue leakages generated
through grey routes?
Prevention is the only way forward to combat mobile spam effectively,
whilst protecting subscribers and the network resources.

8. A Real Case
As seen in our case studies with previous trials,
operators were unaware of their interworking/noninterworking international traffic ratio, and assumed that
A2P was only between 20% to 30% of their overall
traffic.
Interworking
Non-Interworking

9. Number Crunching
Assuming that each
subscriber receives 2
messages a month.
Estimated Connections:
MNO. : 40M Subs
With
Monthly Traffic Estimation
MNO: 80M Int. Incoming SMS
70% of your traffic being Interworking, leaving 30% lost to Grey Routes
&
an average Grey Routes Termination rate of $0.007
MNO would be losing
$2 Million p/a
over Grey Routes
If MNO were to block Grey Routes and charge as
high as $0.06 for incoming traffic, MNO could
potentially stand to make an additional:
$17.3M p/a
Revenue Increase

10. Benefits of Network Profiling
Operator Blocked Grey
Routes by GT/Country
(not effective)
Grey routes were thought
to be less that 20% of
incoming traffic
Operator thought SRI to
SMS ratio was balanced
Thought they were well
equipped for SMS Fraud
Before Trial
After Trial
Findings:
•
•
•
•
Grey routes found to be greater
than 45% of incoming traffic
SRI to SMS ratio was unbalanced
Wangiri Fraud amounted to only
1% of traffic
Grey Routes, when blocked used
alternate GTs and sources
Benefits:
•
•
•
•
•
Fraud identified and countered
Revenue leakage stopped
Extent of Grey Routes identified and
monetized. New Revenue Streams!
Accurate statistical data and reports
presented
Zero Capex

11. A Guide in Five Steps
Request an Audit/Profile of Your Network
Choose a solution with analytics & alerts to be able to pre-empt fraud
Ensure you have blocking control and don’t rely on manual blocking
Choose a partner who is an expert in the field to help combat fraud
Most Importantly: Monetize the foregone revenues!

12. Your Benefits

13. Thank You
claire.cassar@haud.com
Contact one of our offices:
HAUD Systems
Malta : +356 99942342
Sweden : +46 851062770
UK : +44 2035192610
Singapore : +65 68366995
www.haud.com