If it can happen to Mark Cuban, it can happen to you and your organization
Tirthankar Pal
Principal Product Manager
In today's digital age, we rely on our phones and laptops as our central hub for communication. This is true in both our business and personal lives. However, recent events have shown that no one is immune to cyber-attacks.
In this blog post, we highlight a recent incident involving billionaire Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks, Shark Tank) and how his email account was hacked via his phone. It serves as stark reminder that no one (or business) is immune. So be proactive in securing your voice and data networks.
You can’t always trust Caller ID
While many may assume that Caller ID is a foolproof method for identifying incoming calls, this incident proves otherwise. Hackers are now able to spoof phone numbers, making it appear as if they are calling from a trusted source. This deceptive tactic makes it extremely difficult for individuals to determine the legitimacy of incoming calls. As seen in Cuban's case, blindly trusting Caller ID can lead to disastrous consequences such as identity theft and financial loss.
Can we fix it?
Fortunately we can. STIR/SHAKEN is a set of standards adopted by the telecommunications industry that enables service providers to attest and verify caller ID to mitigate unwanted robocalls and prevents bad actors from using Caller ID spoofing. With STIR/SHAKEN, service providers can restore their end customer’s trust in validity of caller ID.
“Stir/Shaken is one potential solution from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The “proposed standard…defines a signature to verify the calling number, and specifies how it will be transported in SIP ‘on the wire,’” according to telecom company Ribbon Communications.”
Read the full article in the Cybersecurity section of IT Brew
