An Omaha business says one of their local numbers is being used by criminals to scam people.
Summit Dental Health with locations around Omaha had one of their phone numbers hacked. People have been receiving calls from one of their local numbers, but they say it's being used for scam purposes if you're not one of their patients.
The Better Business Bureau says companies that use Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, instead of a traditional phone systems can be susceptible to having their phone numbers cloned.
Jim Hegarty the CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Nebraska, South Dakota, Great Plains Kansas, and Southwest Iowa says the scammers use the numbers to make international calls or calls to premium numbers that involve charges, but that's not all.
"It could be used to make calls that appear to be coming from you, your business to your clients, telling them that maybe there's problems with their automatic payment, they need to update credit card information, I mean the list could sort of go on and on," Hegarty explained.
From January 8-31, Whitepages.com says close to 15,000 possible fraudulent calls originated with that number.
Hegarty says it's a warning to all businesses to contact your IT firm if you have one, and make sure your firewall for your VOIP is as up to date as the one for your computer systems.
"Make sure that all of the best business protections have been installed on their web systems, all the firewall protection is up to date, and that its been reviewed to make sure it doesn't have the kind of vulnerabilities that these hackers use to gain access," Hegarty concluded.
