Home phone hack?

LoLth

Wondering if anyone has any insight into this:

an elderly couple received a phone call from an irish number with a person on the other end who only said "hold on. hold on please"

they hung up thinking it was some sort of scam.

Now there is an entry in their home phone landline address book labelled "Bogus" with a 003531454**** (stars added in case it is a legitimate, innocent number) and the line is crackling and popping.

edit: there is another entry in the phonebook called "Mobile Number" with the contact number set to 1 instead of an actual phone number

to me, the obvious first stop is to call the landline provider and report it but I am not familiar with remote hacks of landline phones.

Anyone any idea about this?

I'm not aware of any remote vulnerabilities in normal landline phones. Did you ask them about the phonebook entries? I have elderly relatives myself and weird random entries in the phonebook just sound like something they entered and then forgot about.

LoLth

considered that but they are fairly well clued in on phone scams (we have them well trained). Bogus is not a word they would use (scam yes, bogus, no).

chatted with Virginmedia tech support. no warning of a new scam/hack. more than likely a prank call. (if you ignore the address book entries I would tend to agree with that assessment and I can understand why the natural conclusion is that the two events are not connected)

LoLth

LoLth wrote: »

considered that but they are fairly well clued in on phone scams (we have them well trained). Bogus is not a word they would use (scam yes, bogus, no).

chatted with Virginmedia tech support. no warning of a new scam/hack. more than likely a prank call. (if you ignore the address book entries I would tend to agree with that assessment and I can understand why the natural conclusion is that the two events are not connected)

Can you get the model number and make of the address book device, or the device that holds it. Def Con started today so maybe there is something new out there. I'll do some research.

L1011

Virgin lines are 100% VoIP*; there should be no reason for popping or crackling. Reboot the ATA (usually in the modem, sometimes its the Horizon box) to see if that gets cleared. Doesn't explain the phonebook but that would be an attack on the phone not the line or ATA.

*even the fire-causing Tellabs gear they were using in the 90s was also IP I'm fairly certain, possibly a prototype PacketCable setup.

KoolKid

Probably a long shot could family members have added it ? Kids? Grandchildren etc?

Impetus

The C7 (CCITT No 7) signalling system dates back to 1975. It is used for call set-up and teardown. It carries caller ID among many other data elements. I had ISDN service for many years, and I was able to control the number I presented to the other party - eg I could call somebody from my ISDN landline and present my mobile number to the other side. So if they returned the call while I was out, it would go to my mobile.

Similarly if I called a hotel or whatever, I could see the name of the called party on my phone - eg Jean (Reservations). If he transferred me to a dining room to make a reservation there, I could see the name of the hotel restaurant and perhaps the name of the answering party on the phone's display.

It is a very useful feature for the non-naive, in a civilized country. In your case I suspect that the recipient's phone software is buggy, and/or their phone company (VM?). An incoming call number should not be recorded in an entry in the phonebook unless the recipient OK'd it. Best deleted. Or better still get a new phone. And a new provider of IP / PSTN/ISDN/VoIP.

LoLth

an update on this.

the hardware (router) is old...too old. from the UPC days.(TC7200.U)

there is definitely popping and crackling on the line but that could be the handsets (two handsets, Philips x495 duo).

No one accessed the handsets between the time the call was received and the time I looked at it, it wasnt there before because the handset was used that morning to call a number that is now just before the "Bogus" entry and it would have been clearly visible.

@Impetus: ehhh thanks? I know numbers can be spoofed. there have been several of these scams in the past year. you are correct,the number should not be added to the phonebook.

for the record we are upgrading the router and the phones have been binned. still noise on the line but we'll see what the new router does.