This happens more often that you think and the losses can be staggering. A few years ago, my company was hit by a similar scam. We were lucky, the cost was less than $5000.00 only because we noticed unusual activity early and were able to stop it.

In our case, someone was able to hack the password of one of our employees. With that password they were able to change the settings on the account to forward calls to a small foreign country that had exceptionally high international rates. To make matters worse, they set up a US based toll free number that rang to our employees direct dial number. We literally had thousands of calls in the first 24-hours of the attack.

Our attack could have been easily prevented. Believe it or not, the employee whose password was hacked used a password of 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. You would think it is obvious that you should not use easy to guess passwords like 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 or your first of last name as the password, but you would be surprised how many people still do this. Our company significantly strengthened its password requirements for all users after the attack.

We also under took other measures to prevent these types of attacks. Since 2006 we have not had any further attacks.

Here is the rest of the article on this scumbag, personally, I hope he spends the entire 10-years behind bars, because that is where he belongs.

A Venezuelan man was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday for stealing and then reselling more than 10 million minutes of Internet phone service.

Edwin Pena, 27, was convicted in February of masterminding a scheme to hack into more than 15 telecommunications companies and then reroute calls to their networks at no charge. He must also pay more than US$1 million in restitution, and will be deported once his sentence is served.

To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP system please call (800) 733-4136, or visit us on the web at AvadTechnologies.com

 

The US Federal Communications Commission reports that there are 21 million VoIP subscriptions stateside, and that the vast majority of them are residential customers. But it didn't count Skype subscribers.

 

These figures were announced by the FCC to accompany the release of its highly detailed 31-page report, "Local Telephone Competition". The report, however, isn't exactly what you might call "fresh" — although it was released just last Friday, its data set ends on December 31, 2008.

 

What is surprising is that only 2 million of the lines were business lines according to the Register.  A report by the Dell’Oro Group indicated in a report the VoIP market has suffered greatly due to the economic meltdown.

 

To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP system please call (800) 733-4136, or visit us on the web at VoIP.AvadTechnologies.com

Despite a terrible economy, businesses continue to invest in Voice over IP (VoIP)

According to Frost & Sullivan the number of business users increased by 40.1% in 2009 while revenue increased by 22.3%

Elka Popova, program director of Frost & Sullivan, said SIP services are set to "gain momentum" as more firms consider IP-based applications and expand their current offerings to communicate with both partners and customers.

Earlier this month, research by Frost & Sullivan suggested that demand for VoIP phones and unified communications is set to rise across this year.

Continue reading: Businesses Increasingly Acknowledge the Cost-Saving Value of VoIP

To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP system please call (800) 733-4136, or visit us on the web at VoIP.AvadTechnologies.com

All of these new technology tools like Twitter, Facebook, Instant Messaging have made it much easier for humans to communicate. However, we must realize that people are still people and while these tools make communicating easier, it does not mean that the communications using these tools is going to be more effective. In fact, the technology has gotten so good it has actually begun to scare people, which by default makes these types of communications less effective.

For example, Business VoIP technology in a Call Center has made it possible for an agent to identify a caller before that caller has identified themselves (caller ID combined with a screen pop tied to the call center CRM software). Imagine the first time this happened to you, you place a call to a company about some problem or issue and before you can say your name the agent says "hello Mr./Ms So & So, I see you are having a problem with one of our widgets". I don't know about you, but that was a little spooky the first time it happened to me.

While this new technology does not scare or intimidate the average Geek, it can scare and intimidate the average person. The point is, that people and companies new to find a new set of Etiquette's for these new social tools. I think we are in the process of defining those rules, but we are not quite there yet. When I first got instant messaging, my brother, who I love dearly, would send me a chat request every time he noticed that I was on line. This was ok at first, but very quickly it became a problem. I often get up very early and try and get some work done. As soon as I logged on, I would get a chat request from my brother. At first, it was novel. The chats would go something like this "good morning" my reply "good morning" his reply "whats up", my reply "not much". After a couple of back and fourth messages, "I would say, I have to get some work done" his reply, "ok, by" my reply "bye".

Even short conversations like these can take 5-8 minutes. If you do that 20 times a month, that equals 1-hour and 40-minutes to 2-hours and 20-minutes. This is a huge waste of time because we never actually accomplished anything, actually, it prevented me from getting some really important work done. I started setting my status to "Invisible" because I did not want to offend my brother.

The point is that while these technologies give us a new method of communicating, we still need to consider that "people are still people" and that this new technology does not immediately change a persons way of communicating. It takes time, it is happening as we speak. How many of you know what LOL means. In case you don't it means laugh out loud and just about every person under 30 uses those 3 letters while texting.

Businesses have begun to implement some of these tools as well and while management thinks it will be great and help make the company more efficient, not everyone at the company is at the same level of proficiency with these tools or because they feel uncomfortable with some of the features of these tools like "Presence" )Presence is one of those features. Presence lets people in your social network know exactly where you are at all times(if you have a phone, that lets you connect to the internet).

Here is a link to an article on the "Unified Communications Strategies Blog that discusses the "Etiquette of Unified Communications".

To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP system please call (800) 733-4136, or visit us on the web at VoIP.AvadTechnologies.com

WILMINGTON, Del., June 22 (Reuters) - Frontier Communications Corp (FTR.N) is suing to stop Google Inc (GOOG.O) from offering a service that gives users one phone number connecting their home, work and cell phones because it infringes a patent, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday.

To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP system please call (800) 733-4136, or visit us on the web at VoIP.AvadTechnologies.com

BroadSoft Named Winner in the Telecommunications Category for TechAmerica Foundation American Technology Awards

GAITHERSBURG, MD - June 21, 2010 - BroadSoft®, the leading global provider of IP-based communications services to the telecommunications industry, today announced that it has been named the winner in the Telecommunications category for the American Technology Awards, which bestows the only "Best Of" awards that recognize all technology products and services for the technology industry. The award was attributed to BroadSoft's Consumer Experience, a service that provides telecommunications subscribers with new capabilities and functionality, allowing them to communicate anytime, anywhere and from any device. Nominations for The American Technology Awards, "The Termans," were vetted by industry experts and technology companies. These awards have been named after Frederick Terman, who is widely credited as being the father of Silicon Valley.

"BroadSoft is proud to be named winner of the Terman Award in the Telecommunications category," said Michael Tessler, BroadSoft president and CEO. "We have been providing innovative business and consumer communications solutions for more than 12 years, transforming the ways people connect, communicate, and collaborate, and it's an honor for everyone at BroadSoft to have our achievements recognized by TechAmerica Foundation."

"We had many nominations for these prestigious awards, and we congratulate BroadSoft for their winning achievement," said Phil Bond, chairman, TechAmerica Foundation. "TechAmerica Foundation is excited to highlight BroadSoft as it continues to influence technology development in telecommunications throughout the rest of the world."

The winners were announced on June 16 at TechAmerica Foundation's Eighth Annual Technology and Government Dinner which has been a premier Washington, D.C. networking event bringing hundreds of industry, congressional and government leaders together at one venue to celebrate the partnership between industry and government.

For more information about the Terman Awards, please visit: www.techamericafoundation.org/thetermans.

About Broadsoft

Broadsoft is the leading global provider of software that enables fixed-line, mobile and cable service providers to deliver voice and multimedia services over their IP-based networks. The Company's software, BroadWorks®, enables its service provider customers to provide enterprises and consumers with a range of cloud-based, or hosted, IP multimedia communications, such as hosted IP private branch exchanges, video calling, unified communications, collaboration and converged mobile and fixed-line services.

To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP system please call (800) 733-4136, or visit us on the web at VoIP.AvadTechnologies.com