26 April 2007

At around 6.30 on a Friday evening in February the phones in the head
office of Manchester-based tool distribution company, Joseph Gleave
& Son, started to give an occasional ping. The company was under a
sustained and well-orchestrated attack from fraudsters who were hacking
into its phone system.

Over the weekend they ran up a bill of £2,100
in illegal overseas calls to 19 countries - including Afghanistan,
Albania, Algeria, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco,
Pakistan, Sudan, Serbia and the Republic of Yemen. The biggest single
item was £71 on one call to Afghanistan, where local call termination
charges are among the highest in the world.