Telephone fraud detection system

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Referring to FIG.
1, MCI Detect architecture 10 consists of three basic systems: MCI Detect Workstation 12 MCI Detect Threshold Manager (TM) 14 Fraud Data Server 16.
Each system is resident on a separate computer, and the software is unique to the local computer platform.
The following will describe the system operation as indicated in FIGS.
2 and 3.
Referring to FIG.
2, the architecture of the present invention is shown in greater detail.
The MCI network 4 generates call detail records (CDRs) which are input to an IBM-based computer system, indicated in block 6 as a T2000 (Traffic 2000).
The system stores CDRs generated by the network 4.
The T2000 system conventionally processes billing data, as indicated by reference numeral 8.
The CDRs and billing data are retained in the T2000 for a period of time normally required to conduct fraud analysis.
Typically, this would be for a period of 24 hours.
The components 4, 6 and 8, employed by MCI Detect 10, constitute prior art.
With continued reference to FIG.
1, the output of the T2000 can provide call records including CDRs and billing data to the input of the MCI Detect system 10, and more particularly to a fraud data server (FDS) 16.
The server is of conventional design and includes a buffer for recently retrieved call records which have been obtained from the T2000.
The FDS provides call records to a threshold manager (TM) which processes the call records by reviewing the fields thereof and comparing these fields with established thresholds.
When thresholds are exceeded, they indicate the possible occurrence of fraud.
Alarms are generated by the threshold manager 14 when such thresholds are exceeded.
The alarms are transmitted to the FDS 16 that subsequently communicates the alarms to the workstation 12.
The workstation also has access to the call records buffered in the FDS 16 so that an analyst at MCI, or an analyst at the network customer site, may have access to the necessary information to finally determine the occurrence of fraud