As Unwanted Calls Rise, Mutare’s Annual Voice Network Threat Survey Finds 1 in 4 No Longer Answer Their Business Phone

All Respondents Negatively Impacted by Voice Threats, but Most Tech and Security Professionals Unsure How to Protect Voice Network Against Cybercriminals

Mutare Inc., the Chicago-based market leader in voice threat defense, released the 2023 Voice Network Threat Survey, which found that much uncertainty remains across industries over how to protect against voice network attacks.

With responses from cybersecurity and information technology professionals — 40% of whom are in leadership roles — at RSAC, Cisco Live and Customer Contact Week (CCW), Mutare found that 24% of respondents no longer answer their business phone as the amount of unwanted calls has skyrocketed in recent years. What’s worse, 100% of respondents said they have been negatively impacted by voice threats, an eye-opening statistic emphasizing the severity of this problem, which comes in the form of robocalls, spoof calls, scam calls, spam calls, spam storms, vishing (voice phishing), smishing (SMS, or text, phishing) and social engineering.

The second annual Voice Network Threat Survey sought to gain greater insight into how nuisance and nefarious calls are impacting businesses across industries, as well as what steps businesses are taking to safeguard themselves against outside threats. It found people are actively changing how they interact with the voice channel. In addition to the 24% of people who don’t answer their business phone, another 46% said they were cautious with unknown callers. About half of the respondents have turned to training to solve the problem, but training alone is inadequate to address this growing — and evolving — threat.

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Mutare’s Index of Unwanted Traffic shows year-over-year growth in the share of unwanted calls received by businesses, with this year’s survey finding that an average of 10% of calls across industries are unwanted. Tellingly, 28% of respondents have no idea what percentage of their voice traffic is unwanted, and 31% believe it is greater than 1 in 10 — showing that even though people recognize the problem, they don’t know how to measure it. Nearly 1 in 5 respondents (19%) confirmed their organization experienced a voice-based attack in the last 12 months, while 49% said theirs had not. However, a whopping 37% did not know if their organization faced an attack — which could indicate that companies are reluctant to disclose security incidents, even to their own employees.

Respondents came from a variety of industries, with most (39%) in the technology and innovation industry, followed by government, financial services, healthcare, education, utilities and energy, manufacturing, retail, and legal.

An overwhelming majority of the respondents — 85% — agree it is time to elevate voice as a threat vector, but the survey found limited use of proactive, technical solutions (which are readily available) to keep the problem at bay.

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