SIMBox Bypass Frauds in Cellular Networks: Strategies, Evolution, Detection, and Future Directions

Due to their complexity and opaqueness, cellular networks have been subject to numerous attacks over the past few decades. These attacks are a real problem to telecom operators and cost them about USD 28.3 Billion annually, as reported by the <italic>Communications Fraud Control Association</italic>. <italic>SIMBox</italic> fraud is one of the most prevalent of these telephone frauds. It consists of diverting international calls on the VoIP network and terminating them as local calls using an off-the-shelf device, referred to as <italic>SIMBox</italic>. This paper surveys both the existing literature and the major <italic>SIMBox</italic> manufacturers to provide comprehensive and analytical knowledge on <italic>SIMBox</italic> fraud, fraud strategies, fraud evolution, and fraud detection methods. We provide the necessary background on the telephone ecosystem while extensively exploring the <italic>SIMBox</italic> architecture required to understand fraud strategies. Our goal is to provide a complete introductory guide for research on <italic>SIMBox</italic> fraud and stimulate interest for <italic>SIMBox</italic> fraud detection, which remains little investigated. In this vein, we conclude the paper by presenting insights into tomorrow’s <italic>SIMBox</italic> fraud detection challenges and research directions.