First Orion Ushers in New Era of Outbound Call Spoof Protection with Launch of SENTRY

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Oct. 10, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Orion today announces the launch of SENTRY™, adding to its leading branded communication solutions that put trust back into the phone call. This innovative authentication solution allows enterprises to proactively block fraudulent, spoofed outbound calls and ensures their numbers are only used for legitimate calls.

In 2020, U.S. businesses lost $25.6B due to account takeover-related fraud, according to Juniper Research. Account takeover fraud is one of the most common forms of identity theft and often involves scammers illegally spoofing phone numbers associated with reputable businesses. Not only do these scams cause financial loss, they also significantly damage a brand’s reputation. A recent survey found that nearly 90% of respondents expect enterprises to protect consumers by ensuring scammers do not spoof phone numbers associated with their business. The survey also found that four out of five respondents believed they received a phone call from a spoofed number.

SENTRY ensures that a call from the originating number to the destination number can only be delivered if it is from an authorized caller. All legitimate calls are delivered, while all illegitimate calls are blocked and never reach the end user’s device. This essentially eliminates the ability for scammers to use numbers associated with legitimate businesses to gain consumer trust. The out-of-band spoof protection solution integrates seamlessly with enterprise calling solutions via API. It offers number management and the ability to protect an enterprise’s entire number inventory, even those not in use. Enterprises also receive reports on the number of calls blocked and calls delivered.

SENTRY identified and blocked illegal spoofing attempts, constituting over 5% of a prominent insurance provider’s outbound calling traffic on more than half of their phone numbers.

“Our more than decade-long experience developing industry-defining communication protection solutions for major carriers has put us in a unique position to address the illegal call spoofing challenges affecting enterprises and their customers,” said Scott Hambuchen, chief information officer at First Orion. “With SENTRY, we provide a robust solution that enables high-call volume and high-risk enterprises, as well as UCaaS, CPaaS, and CCaaS providers, to safeguard their phone channels and protect their brand reputation."

SecureLogix, a leading provider of voice network security solutions, is one of the first partners to provide its enterprise clients with First Orion’s spoof mitigation solution.

“Illegal call spoofing is a significant problem that negatively affects enterprises and their customers, and there was never a tried and tested solution until now,” said Sean Donadio, senior vice president of authentication solutions at SecureLogix. “I’ve seen first-hand how SENTRY is helping one of the largest insurance providers protect its customers, brand reputation and bottom line by preventing bad actors from spoofing their phone numbers. This is the latest representation of how First Orion continues to push the telecommunications industry forward through its innovative solutions.”

First Orion provides the industry’s most secure calling experience to major carriers and Fortune 500 companies, such as leading insurance, health care and financial services providers. The telecommunications solutions provider follows international data security standards and is ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified. To learn more about SENTRY and how it protects enterprises from having their numbers spoofed, visit firstorion.com/sentry/.

About First Orion:

Since 2008, First Orion has transformed the phone call experience for businesses, carriers and consumers through its industry-leading communication branding and protection solutions. The global telecommunications solutions provider helps businesses generate more revenue, increase efficiency, and improve the customer experience by empowering them to brand their phone calls with their name, logo and reason for calling. First Orion also provides the industry’s most secure calling experience and best-in-class analytics for call program optimization. As the market leader in branded calling, First Orion is a trusted partner to Fortune 500 companies and the largest U.S. mobile carriers. For more information, visit firstorion.com.

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A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/70ffcd31-756c-4c3e-b444-21fd80d037ea