Mutare’s Proprietary Dynamic Database is a powerful and continuously evolving hard line of defense against unwanted intrusions from phone numbers that are spoofed or known to have poor calling reputations. The proprietary dynamic database taps into multiple worldwide resources dedicated to tracking, verifying, and reporting tens of millions of nuisance, Do Not Originate, and nefarious phone numbers behind most spam, scam, vishing, and robocall campaigns. While we do not publicize our data sources, it is important to note that in addition to Mutare’s own unwanted caller data, we purchase and bring together data from 8 of the most established and trusted organizations across the globe, effectively creating the largest data lake in the world for nuisance and nefarious callers. Remember, all our data sources are dynamically updating, getting stronger in real time.

Rest assured, legitimate calls will never be blocked. Designed to “do no harm,” the Voice Traffic Filter provides an extra layer of vetting for calls suspected as potential spam and the ability to route all calls or those flagged as suspect through a voice CAPTCHA. The system prompts the caller to input a random set of digits before passing the call through, effectively separating bots from humans.

The Mutare Voice Traffic Filter purifies voice network traffic by removing unwanted calls before they enter your voice network (at the network edge).  This is a critical security strategy and a true differentiator for the Voice Traffic Filter, as most competing solutions allow dubious and nefarious traffic into the network, and then attempt to determine each call’s legitimacy.  Mutare strongly believes that protecting and defending organizations from bad actors begins with keeping them on the outside.  Again, VTF eliminates threats before they get inside your organization, taking away the opportunity to cause damage.

Individual employees can also create and add their own personal blocklists to the Mutare Voice Traffic Filter through a simple web portal. When a personal blocklist number is added, it becomes part of the VTF custom rules set, with the Block action applied to calls From the specified number To that specific employee. By giving users the power to further protect themselves from solicitors, spam callers or other intrusions, this feature extends the protective power of Voice Traffic Filter while significantly reducing helpdesk tickets related to unwanted calls.

The tactics used to infiltrate organizations through the voice channel are continuously evolving as criminal agents find new ways to hit their marks while evading detection. Even as awareness of these deceptive practices is growing, organizations that rely primarily on modifying human behavior to prevent a successful breach attempt are clearly failing at the task. The Mutare Voice Traffic Filter’s approach recognizes that the most likely failure point in voice network protection is the human endpoint, and the most effective way to prevent a breach is to protect that endpoint itself. VTF’s dynamic fraud detection capabilities are built on sophisticated data analysis using pattern recognition, AI and machine learning to detect, and respond in real time, to anomalous voice traffic behaviors that indicate a potential threat. Mutare’s level of access to that call data and unique ability to extract revealing information means we, and our customers, stay a step ahead of emerging adversarial trends.

 The Voice Traffic Filter not only protects the organization against nuisance and nefarious inbound calls, but also includes controls for blocking unauthorized or illicit outbound call activity which waste organizational resources, disrupts productivity, and puts the security of the enterprise and its employees at risk. Such activity may include unauthorized calls to premium numbers, non-business calls to international numbers or sanctioned countries, calls that do not conform to organization-specific regulations, and calls to known scam numbers and phishers. Outbound call filtering rules can also be applied to block activity consistent with toll fraud whereby a criminal agent highjacks an organization’s number to generate large volumes of costly international calls. This two-way call filtering capability is a key differentiator for the Mutare solution and provides administrators with unprecedented control over the integrity of all voice traffic flowing into and out of their organization.

The Voice Traffic Filter (VTF) is rapidly becoming the market leader in protecting enterprise voice networks. While we are proud of this success, we have much more value to offer as we target the expansive Voice Channel. The evolution of the VTF solution is ongoing and significant, as evidenced by both our recent solution updates and development roadmap. Look for the following announcements in the coming months: App for Protecting Mobile Phones, Integrations to top CCaaS platforms, Enhancements to our Administrative Dashboard, and new capabilities to provide Voice Telemetry for ingestion into security platforms such as SIEM and XDR. Across our entire organization, our Mission (to be the recognized leader in voice threat defense for the enterprise) is more than a rallying cry; it is a collective vision with clear strategies and tactics.

Voice Traffic Filter’s powerful call tracking, analysis and reporting capabilities are on full display through the powerful administrative dashboard. This visual, data-rich, dynamic overview provides clarity and insights into your voice network activity and filtering actions. It enables you to identify patterns and trends that may be impacting your network performance and supports fact-based decisions around network management resource allocations.

Voice threat defense, is more than a security, business or customer experience issue to Mutare…it is our stated Mission. As such, as an organization, we are united and galvanized to, not only protect our clients from bad actors who use the Voice Channel as their conduit of destruction, but to educate and inform the business community around the world about this new, yet rapidly evolving issue. Again, Voice as a cybersecurity threat vector is new and developing. Many technology, business and cybersecurity professionals remain naïve or uninformed. When the voice channel does come into the discussion, it is more often than not about the infrastructure, and NOT about the traffic that traverses said infrastructure.

So, Mutare has stepped up, and continues to double-down on educating and informing the business public. To get the word out, we have published multiple articles and ebooks, we conduct a series of webinars, we are a frequent subject-matter expert for multiple media outlets, we conduct topical research and present the results through social media, email and on our website, and we are a founding member of the new Vishing-Awareness initiative and Vishing Awareness Week. The bottom-line is that Vishing and telephone-oriented attacks are growing in both frequency and severity, and Mutare is on the front lines to educate, inform, protect the good guys…and thwart the bad guys. Below are just a few examples: