One way to block fraudulent messaging traffic is to restrict the set of countries your account can send messages to. Plivo uses geo permissions to help curb SMS and voice fraud. We’ll block (and not charge for) any messages or calls sent to countries to which sending is not allowed. Each Verify request is made from an application that’s mapped to a subaccount. You can access your applications and the subaccounts they’re mapped to on the Plivo console.

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Messaging

Plivo recommends that all customers use our new Fraud Shield to help curb the risk of SMS fraud, such as SMS pumping and account token takeover. Fraud Shield’s Geo Permissions feature allows you to control the countries to which your SMS traffic is sent. For the countries that you wish to send messages to, Fraud Thresholds can be enabled. It’s a limit of how many messages can be set per hour to the countries that you have approved. This control allows you to take corrective action if the threshold is breached. We’ll block (and not charge for) any messages that are intended for countries not included in your destination list.

Visit the Fraud Shield documentation to learn more and start configuring your settings.

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Voice

Plivo can protect your account from fraud by restricting the set of countries your account can call. If, for example, you intend to place calls to numbers in North America only, you can disable call routes to all other continents. Similarly, if you’re running an inbound call center, or your use case doesn’t involve outbound calling to PSTN numbers, you can block outbound routes to all countries as a precautionary measure.

To manage geo permissions, navigate to Voice > Geo Permissions on the Plivo console.

Here you’ll see a list of all countries. You can filter the list by selecting specific geographic regions or countries. Geo permission configurations are applied immediately to all calls initiated via Plivo APIs.

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Calling premium rate numbers

Premium rate numbers are a special case of voice calling. These numbers cost callers more than normal numbers. Part of that charge is paid to the service provider, which puts premium rate numbers at high risk of being exploited via traffic pumping, a type of telecom fraud in which bad actors artificially inflate traffic to their premium rate numbers. When done across countries, this type of toll fraud is known as International Revenue Share Fraud (ISRF).

Most businesses never need to call premium rate numbers, so by default Plivo blocks calls to all phone numbers with high-risk prefixes as a way to prevent unwanted charges.

Plivo has identified thousands of premium rate and high-risk prefixes. You can export a list of these prefixes from the Voice > Geo Permissions screen on the High-Risk Permissions tab. Plivo regularly updates this list based on factors such as the rates associated with the premium numbers, call patterns, and third-party trends.

If you have a legitimate need to make calls to premium rate or high-risk numbers, you can request activation of high-risk permissions for your account or a particular subaccount by contacting our support team and providing them with details of your use case.