Methods and apparatus for detection and mitigation of robocalls

1. A method of processing calls to a customer, the method comprising:

processing call records of said customer to identify calls which are possibly from a robocaller, based on at least one of i) a call characteristic or ii) a call pattern, said call pattern including at least one of an error rate, call rate, call diversity or start-to-start time between adjacent calls from a call source, each identified call having a calling party number;

storing calling party source identification information of the identified calls in a suspect robocall database;

processing an incoming call, said processing including comparing calling party source identification information of the incoming call to the calling party source identification information in the suspect robocall database; and

completing the incoming call in a standard manner if the incoming calling party source identification information is not in the suspect robocall database; and

handling the incoming call as a suspect robocall if the incoming calling party source identification information is in the suspect robocall database.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said calling party source identification information includes one or more of the following: a calling party number, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) agent string, an Internet Protocol (IP) address, a source Internet Protocol (IP) address, contact header information in a call initiation request, and content of first VIA header in a call initiation request.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein completing the incoming call in a standard manner includes completing the incoming call to a device corresponding to a called party number included in the incoming call without any indication that the incoming call is a possible robocall.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein handling the incoming call as a suspect robocall includes at least one of: i) completing the incoming call to a device corresponding to a called party number included in the incoming call with an indication that the incoming call is a suspect robocall; ii) redirecting the incoming call to a validation service; iii) assigning the incoming call a lower incoming call priority than a non-suspect robocall when placing the incoming call in a call handling queue; iv) delivering the incoming call to voice mail or v) dropping or blocking the incoming call.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:

storing with individual calling party source identification information entries of the identified calls in the suspect robocall database a probability that the individual calling party source identification information entry corresponds to an actual robocall; and

wherein processing the incoming call further includes determining, based on the stored probability associated with the calling party source identification information of a suspect incoming call, a call handling rule.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein handling the incoming call as a suspect robocall includes determining what action to take based on the probability that the incoming call is a robocall.

7. The method of claim 1 further including:

processing a plurality of additional incoming calls to identify suspect robocalls based on the incoming calls′ calling party source identification information, said processing including comparing calling party source identification information of said incoming calls to the calling party source identification information in the suspect robocall database, said processing of said incoming calls being independent of said processing call records of said customer to identify calls which are possibly from a robocaller.

8. The method of claim 1 ,

wherein said customer is an enterprise customer; and

wherein said step of processing call records of said customer is performed on a periodic basis for calls to said enterprise customer.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein said suspect robocall database includes fewer records than a labeling database of reported possible robocalls used to identify characteristics of robocalls.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein said processing call records of said customer to identify calls which are possibly from a robocaller includes identifying calls which are from a robocaller which are not included in said labeling database.

11. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:

generating a call classification model to be used to identify possible robocalls, said step of generating a call classification model including:

accessing a set of call detail records (CDRs) of the customer for a period of time;

comparing calling party numbers in the accessed call records to the calling party numbers in at least one database of reported possible robocallers to identify calls which are from known or likely robocallers, said identified calls being a set of previously received suspect robocalls; and

generating, from the call detail records of the set of previously received suspect robocalls, call pattern information indicative of a suspect robocall.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein said call classification model is generated using a machine learning algorithm.

13. A system of processing calls to a customer, the system comprising:

a suspect robocall detector device including:

a first processor configured to control the suspect call detector device to process call records of said customer to identify calls which are possibly from a robocaller, based on at least one of i) a call characteristic or ii) a call pattern, said call pattern including at least one of an error rate, call rate, call diversity or start-to-start time between adjacent calls from a call source, each identified call having a calling party number, and

a first memory;

a suspect robocall database for storing calling party source identification information of the identified calls which are possibly from a robocaller;

a call processing device including:

a second processor configured to operate the call processing device to:

process an incoming call, said process the incoming call including comparing calling party source identification information of the incoming call to the calling party source identification information in the suspect robocall database; and

complete the incoming call in a standard manner if the incoming call is not in the suspect robocall database; and

handle the incoming call as a suspect robocall if the incoming calling party source identification information is in the suspect robocall database.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein said calling party source identification information includes one or more of the following: a calling party number, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) agent string, an Internet Protocol (IP) address, a source Internet Protocol (IP) address, contact header information in a call initiation request, and content of first VIA header in a call initiation request.

15. The system of claim 13 , wherein said complete the incoming call in a standard manner includes completing the incoming call to a device corresponding to the called party number included in the incoming call without any indication that the incoming call is a possible robocall.

16. The system of claim 13 , wherein said handle the incoming call as a suspect robocall includes at least one of: i) completing the incoming call to a device corresponding to the called party number included in the incoming call with an indication that the incoming call is a suspect robocall; ii) redirecting the incoming call to a validation service; iii) assigning the incoming call a lower incoming call priority than a non-suspect robocall when placing the incoming call in a call handling queue; iv) delivering the incoming call to voice mail or v) dropping or blocking the incoming call.

17. The system of claim 16 ,

wherein said first processor of said suspect robocall detector device is further configured to control said suspect robocall detector device to store with individual calling party source identification information entries of the identified calls in the suspect robocall database a probability that the individual calling party source identification entry corresponds to an actual robocall; and

wherein processing the incoming call further includes determining, based on the stored probability associated with the calling party source identification information of a suspect incoming call, a call handling rule.

18. The system of claim 13 ,

wherein said customer is an enterprise customer; and

wherein said first processor is further configured to control the operation of the suspect robocall detector so that said processing of call records of said customer is performed on a periodic basis for calls to said enterprise customer.

19. The system of claim 13 , wherein said suspect robocall database includes fewer records than a labeling database of reported possible robocalls used to identify characteristics of robocalls.

20. The system of claim 19 , wherein said first processor of said suspect robocall detector device is further configured to control said suspect robocall detector to:

generate a call classification model to be used to identify possible robocalls, said generate a call classification model including:

accessing a set of call detail records (CDRs) of the customer for a period of time;

comparing calling party numbers in the accessed call records to the calling party numbers in at least one database of reported robocallers to identify calls which are from known or likely robocallers, said identified calls being a set of previously received suspect robocalls; and

generating from the call detail records of the set of previously received suspect robocalls, call pattern information indicative of a suspect robocall.