BICS has partnered with Luxembourg’s POST Cyberforce – the cybersecurity experts from POST Luxembourg – to create a solution designed to help mobile operators secure their network infrastructure against signalling attacks, safeguarding their subscribers and revenues.
“Security is a fundamental requirement for our digital economy, and as operators diversify into new markets and look to drive revenue from areas such as A2P messaging and the IoT, securing their networks will become even more critical,” said Jorn Vercamert, VP Communications Solutions at BICS. “We’re proud to be working with POST Luxembourg and its dedicated team – POST Cyberforce – to tackle this pressing issue and enable service providers to enhance security for subscribers and businesses on a global scale.”
POST Cyberforce already protects critical infrastructure for major European institutions, such as the European Parliament, Court of Justice and Investment Bank. This expertise is being combined with BICS’ suite of fraud prevention solutions and global roaming capabilities. The resulting solution covers two essential pillars of mobile network cybersecurity:
- it provides a network vulnerability assessment of the real roaming environment
- it delivers a telecom intrusion detection system, designed with embedded business logic and supported by a regularly updated threat knowledge-base.
Combined with proactive infrastructure testing, real-time threat prevention, 24/7 business support and forensic investigations, the offering will help mobile operators to add an additional layer of security to their networks. It will also significantly enhance security for IoT devices, which are increasingly reliant on mobile networks for connectivity. Such devices have seen a nine-fold increase in attacks year-on-year.
This announcement comes at a critical time for mobile operators, whose networks and customers are increasingly under siege. In the last year alone, telecoms fraud cost the industry more than EUR29 billion, as cyber-attacks increasingly target service providers. Subscriber tracking, call and SMS interception and DDoS attacks have surged, while the attack surface is expanding (particularly with the growth of IoT) and new vulnerabilities are being discovered and expected in both 4G and 5G networks.
Mohamed Ourdane, Chief Security Officer, POST Luxembourg, is confident that the combination of POST Luxembourg’s and BICS’ technology and expertise will, however, provide operators with the capabilities they need to tackle these challenges. “Our new solution marks a major step forward in the fight against cyber-crime,” he said.
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