Instruction manual

MERLIN LEGEND/MAGIX toll fraud
Issue 9 May 2003
6-23
“reliable disconnect” (sometimes referred to as forward disconnect or
disconnect supervision), which guarantees that the central office does not
return a dial tone after the called party hangs up. In most cases, the central
office facility is a loop-start line/trunk which does not provide reliable
disconnect. When loop-start lines/trunks are used, if the calling party stays
on the line, the central office does return a dial tone at the conclusion of the
call, enabling the caller to place another call as if it were being placed from
your company. Ground-start trunks provide reliable disconnect and should
be used whenever possible.
Preventive measures
Take the following preventive measures to limit the risk of unauthorized use of the
Automated Attendant feature by hackers:
■ Do not use automated attendant prompts for automatic route selection
(ARS) codes or pooled facility codes.
■ Assign all unused automated attendant selector codes to zero, so that
attempts to dial these are routed to the system attendant.
■ If RCF is required, MERLIN MAGIX Integrated System owners should
coordinate with their Avaya Account Team or authorized dealer to verify the
type of central office facility used for RCF. If it is a ground-start line/trunk, or
if it is a loop-start line/trunk and central office reliable disconnect can be
ensured, then nothing else needs to be done. In most cases, these are
loop-start lines/trunks without reliable disconnect. The local telephone
company must be involved in order to change the facilities used for RCF to
ground-start line/trunks. Usually, a charge applies for this change. Also,
hardware and software changes may be necessary in the MERLIN MAGIX
Integrated System. The MERLIN Messaging Automated Attendant feature
merely accesses the RCF feature in the MERLIN MAGIX Integrated
System. Without these changes being made, this feature is highly
susceptible to toll fraud. These same preventive measures must be taken if
the RCF feature is active for MERLIN MAGIX Integrated System
extensions, whether or not it is accessed by an automated attendant menu.