Anti-spoofing techniques for outbound telephone calls

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for verifying a caller ID field of an outbound telephone call. A termination service provider call server receives a call request from a calling endpoint that includes a called endpoint telephone number, and a caller ID telephone number. The termination service provider call server determines a calling endpoint telephone number assigned to the calling endpoint and creates an 'in use' message comprising the calling endpoint telephone number and a timestamp of when the call request was received. The 'in use' message is forwarded to an active call database before forwarding the call request to an inbound carrier call server servicing the called endpoint telephone number. The inbound carrier call server receives the call request intended and sends a query to the active call database to determine whether the caller ID telephone number in the call request is currently in use. The active call database sets the status of telephone numbers contained in all received “in use” messages to in use. It then determines whether the caller ID telephone number received in the query from the inbound carrier call server corresponds to a telephone number that is currently in use. If the caller ID telephone number does not correspond to a telephone number that is currently in use, the active call database returns a fail message to the inbound carrier call server. If the caller ID telephone number does correspond to a telephone number that is currently in use but the timestamps for the call request and the query differ by more than a predetermined duration, it returns a fail message to the inbound carrier call server. If the timestamps for the call request and the query are within the predetermined duration, it returns a pass message to the inbound carrier call server. The inbound carrier call server either routes or does not route the call request to the called endpoint depending on the query results.