If your time is short
- Illegal robocalls are a nuisance and a vehicle for bad actors to commit fraud.
- The telecommunications industry has developed a framework called STIR/SHAKEN to verify the authenticity of caller ID numbers.
- The deadline to implement these protocols is June 30, 2021.
- Phone.com complies with these requirements.
- The change will have no customer impact except for hopefully reducing the number of illegally spoofed caller-IDs. Some carriers may also flag calls as “Trusted.”
Background
Illegal robocalls are a nuisance and a vehicle for bad actors to commit fraud. The recent surge in robocalls is due to the accessibility of tools that enable fraudsters to spoof outbound dialing numbers and effortlessly generate millions of calls. This has led to consumers losing trust in phone calls.
Between 3 and 5 billion robocalls are made each month, and research suggests that more than 40% of those calls are thought to be fraud-related.
What Does STIR/SHAKEN Mean?
STIR/SHAKEN is a framework of interconnected standards. STIR and SHAKEN are acronyms for the Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using Tokens (SHAKEN) standards. This means that calls traveling through interconnected phone networks will have their caller ID “signed” as legitimate by originating carriers and validated by other carriers before reaching consumers. STIR/SHAKEN digitally validates the handoff of phone calls passing through the complex web of networks, allowing the phone company of the consumer receiving the call to verify that a call is, in fact, from the number displayed on the Caller ID.
How Will Caller ID Authentication Help Consumers?
Caller ID authentication technology enables subscribers to trust that callers are who they say they are, reducing the effectiveness of fraudulently spoofed calls. This technology is critical to protecting Americans from scams using spoofed robocalls because it erodes the ability of callers to illegally mimic a caller ID, which scammers use to trick people into answering their phones when they otherwise wouldn’t. Caller ID authentication technology also allows consumers and law enforcement alike to more readily identify the source of illegal robocalls and reduce their frequency and impact.
As implementation continues to progress, it will give people more confidence that the caller ID information they receive is accurate and will allow voice service providers to provide helpful information to their consumers about which calls to answer.
How Does it Work?
In a STIR/SHAKEN call, the originating service provider signs (or attests) to their relationship with the caller and their right to use the calling number.
The SHAKEN attestation value can be used as an input to robocall analytic algorithms to determine the riskiness of a call.
Once STIR/SHAKEN is implemented, the major mobile carriers in the USA will have the ability to communicate the trust level of each call. For example, calls with level “A” may be flagged as “Trusted.” Calls with level “C” may be flagged as “Likely Spam” or blocked entirely.
What Does it Mean for Phone.com?
Phone.com is “STIR/SHAKEN compliant ahead of the June 30, 2021 deadline.
Phone.com has protocols in place to determine the attestation level. Phone.com is committed to protecting our customers from illegal calls. These new protocols are an essential step in the war against fraud.