Search: “call-centers”

OpenAI's GPT-Live-1 API lets developers build apps that talk and listen at the same time

OpenAI's GPT-Live-1 API enables full-duplex speech apps, outperforming GPT-Realtime-2.1 with 0.8s turn-taking latency at $0.05 per minute.

OpenAI released GPT-Live-1 as a developer API for full-duplex speech, allowing applications to listen and talk simultaneously; it already powers ChatGPT voice. Benchmarks show 80.1% on full-duplex interactivity versus 45.4% for GPT-Realtime-2.1, turn-taking latency of 0.8 seconds versus 1.4 seconds, tool-calling accuracy of 87% versus 60%, and a 32% pass rate on a banking voice-support benchmark versus 12.4%. The model costs $0.05 per minute, ships twelve new voices, provides ASR transcripts and response text, and is already in production at Yelp for phone-based reservations.

The Decoder·Sep 10, 17:47 UTC · 6d agoModel release 2 sources1

I Am No One: Style-Aware Paraphrasing for Text Anonymization

Prompt-driven style-aware paraphrasing with LLMs cuts authorship attribution F1 by 60-70% while preserving content quality.

The paper proposes a style-aware, prompt-driven anonymization approach using pretrained LLMs to build compact stylistic profiles from minimal samples and rewrite text to suppress identifiable style markers while preserving meaning. It addresses stylometric re-identification risks in anonymized text, including ASR transcripts of meetings and call-center calls where leakage persists after acoustic anonymization. Across blog and review datasets, the approach reduces authorship attribution F1 by 60-70%, substantially outperforming both DP-based and non-DP baselines while maintaining readability.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 11, 02:07 UTC · 5d agoResearch

Ukrainian police raid 94 fraudulent call centers, seize $2 million

Ukrainian police raided 94 fraudulent call centers impersonating banks and brokers, seizing about $2 million and thousands of devices.

Ukraine's National Police, with the Security Service of Ukraine and Prosecutor General's Office, executed 400-plus searches across 867 addresses, dismantling 94 call centers used for bank-impersonation, fake investment, and crypto-platform fraud. Seizures included 3,336 pieces of computer equipment, 1,346 phones, over 5,200 SIM cards, 20 crypto wallets, and about $2 million, 64,000 euros, and a kilogram of gold. 26 people were named as suspects under fraud and money laundering charges carrying up to 12 years in prison, and one group defrauded EU citizens with German authorities cooperating.

Help Net Security·Aug 14, 00:00 UTC · Aug 14, 2026Phishing & fraud

Teams calls are about to get a lot harder to fake

Microsoft will roll out Brand Impersonation Protection in Teams Calling from mid-May 2026, warning users about suspicious inbound VoIP calls impersonating trusted brands.

Microsoft Teams Calling is gaining Brand Impersonation Protection, which evaluates inbound VoIP calls from first-time external callers for signs of brand impersonation and displays warnings before users answer high-risk calls. The feature rolls out from mid-May 2026 with completion expected by late May 2026, is enabled by default, and requires no administrative action. Users can accept, block, or end flagged calls, and alerts may continue throughout a call if suspicious activity persists. Microsoft recommends preparing helpdesk teams and updating security awareness materials ahead of deployment.

Help Net Security·Sep 4, 08:04 UTC · 12d agoTools

Keepnet launches free SMS/Call Reporter for iOS

Keepnet launched a free iOS app, SMS/Call Reporter, letting users one-tap report smishing and vishing into corporate incident response pipelines.

Keepnet released the free SMS/Call Reporter app for iOS, letting users report suspicious SMS and voice phishing with one tap. For enterprise customers, reports flow into Keepnet Incident Responder alongside email phishing reports. The company cites Verizon 2026 DBIR data showing mobile phishing simulations achieve a 40% higher median click rate than email, and FBI IC3 2025 counted $798 million in smishing and vishing losses. An Android version is planned.

Help Net Security·Sep 2, 00:00 UTC · 14d agoTools

FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

The FCC proposed a public scorecard rating telecoms' anti-robocall effectiveness and removed 14 providers from US networks for compliance failures.

The Federal Communications Commission issued a public notice proposing a scorecard that would assess how effectively retail voice providers, including wireless, wireline and VoIP, prevent illegal robocalls, drawing on Robocall Mitigation Database filings, consumer complaint and enforcement data. The agency stressed it is not a rulemaking imposing new requirements, and it is seeking comment on scope, such as whether to focus on larger providers. The same day, the FCC removed 14 providers from the Robocall Mitigation Database for non-compliance, effectively requiring other US providers to block their traffic within two days.

CyberScoop·Sep 2, 17:57 UTC · 14d agoPolicy & legal

The complex corporate web behind a $3.2 billion AI data center

Ars Technica probes diffuse accountability behind TeraWulf's $3.2B Lake Mariner AI data center after a June fire exposed safety and job gaps.

A June fire at the Lake Mariner data center in Somerset, New York exposed missing alarms, a nonfunctioning suppression system, and dry hydrants, highlighting how responsibility is split across TeraWulf (owner-operator), Fluidstack (operator), Google (lease guarantees and equity warrants), and Anthropic (compute customer). The article details local concerns over the gap between promised 165 permanent jobs and a projected 35-40, socialized grid costs, and Governor Hochul's moratorium on hyperscaler development. Anthropic's February 2026 pledge to cover electricity price increases applies to the site but leaves other commitments unverified.

Ars Technica · AI·Sep 7, 11:00 UTC · 9d agoAI industry

How RingCentral builds AI-native work from engineering to ops

OpenAI's case study describes RingCentral using ChatGPT Work and Codex to accelerate AI product development and centralize operational intelligence across engineering and operations.

OpenAI published a customer story on RingCentral's adoption of ChatGPT Work and Codex. RingCentral reportedly uses the tools to speed up AI product development and centralize operational intelligence across engineering and operations. The post is promotional rather than technical and describes no security incidents.

OpenAI News·Aug 12, 00:00 UTC · Aug 12, 2026AI industry

Ukraine moves to crack down on scam call centers after corruption scandal

Ukraine's parliament passed legislation criminalizing fraudulent call centers with 7-12 year prison terms after a bribery scandal implicating prosecutors.

Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada passed legislation making electronic-communications fraud and organizing or working for fraudulent call centers separate crimes punishable by 7-12 years, awaiting President Zelensky's signature. The bill advanced after NABU alleged prosecutors took bribes since mid-2025 to shield scam call centers; five suspects were named and Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, who denies wrongdoing, was dismissed by parliament and presidential decree. Ukrainian authorities previously reported 411 searches and 94 suspected call centers shut down in one week, including a Kyiv operation that stole over $500,000 from dozens of Americans.

The Record·12:45 UTC · 10h agoPolicy & legal

The Machines Are Calling: Measuring Automated and Synthetic Voices in Unwanted Inbound Calls

Voice honeypot measurement finds at least 26.9% of unwanted US inbound calls open with machine voices, 13.1% with fresh synthetic speech.

An interactive voice honeypot using language-model personas on real US numbers recorded 10,987 calls over 66 days, following the FCC's February 2024 ruling that AI-generated voices fall under the TCPA. Of 7,233 greeted calls, 13.8% opened with recordings replayed from other calls and 13.1% with fresh audio labeled synthetic, with replays making up 45% of the detector's flagged rate. Synthetic openings concentrated in lead-generation spam (33.8%) rather than fraud (21.1%), and only 0.44% of calls disclosed automation. Prevalence tracked how long a bait number had circulated, and campaigns outlasted their numbers, with one synthetic voice serving nine campaigns.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 10, 06:28 UTC · 6d agoResearch

Product showcase: ScamNet looks for warning signs in suspicious calls and shady links

Synaptrex's ScamNet app filters scam calls, messages and websites on Apple devices using on-device AI and reputation checks.

ScamNet: Anti-Scam Suite from Synaptrex Technologies is a free consumer app (with ScamNet+ subscription) for iPhone, iPad and Mac that blocks robocalls and spam via iOS Call Blocking & Identification, filters unknown senders with an offline detection engine, and provides a Safari extension that analyzes and blocks suspicious websites. A Check/Report tool accepts phone numbers, websites, crypto addresses, text, images and audio, and a Device Shield verifies passcode, OS updates and screen-recording status.

Help Net Security·Aug 17, 00:00 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Tools

Risky Bulletin: Russia tells data centers to deploy drone defenses

Russia ordered data center operators to deploy drone strike defenses under a Putin decree allowing temporary state takeover of unprotected critical infrastructure.

The Russian government instructed data center operators to deploy protections against drone strikes under a presidential decree signed by Putin that allows temporary state administration of critical infrastructure operators failing to defend against Ukrainian hacks and drone strikes. Although data centers are not formally critical infrastructure in Russia, the decree applies to them because other sectors depend heavily on cloud services; Russia has more than 180 data centers, over 80% in the European region within range of Ukrainian strikes. The digest also reports a Dropbox breach affecting nearly 5,000 accounts via the Lenovo ID integration, spyware attacks on at least 14 Serbians using NoviSpy or Pegasus, and a password recovery attack targeting hundreds of thousands of X accounts tied to the new X Money service. Other items include a 14-hour compromise of Coder's Cloudflare infrastructure delivering malicious Terraform modules, donor data breaches at Davayte and You Are Not Alone via the Stripe/WooCommerce integration, a $2.5M Aquifer crypto heist, and a TVING breach exposing data of almost 40 million accounts.

Risky Business News·Sep 4, 03:02 UTC · 12d agoPolicy & legal

Safe word: What is it and why do you need one?

ESET recommends pre-agreed family safe words to counter AI voice-clone scams such as virtual kidnapping, as one-in-four Americans report receiving deepfake calls.

ESET outlines how scammers use just seconds of audio scraped from social media or work content to create convincing voice clones, with a Hiya report finding one-in-four Americans received a deepfake voice call in the past 12 months. Common schemes include virtual kidnapping calls mixing cloned voices with sobbing and background noise. A pre-agreed, non-OSINT-discoverable safe word, plus callback verification via known numbers and 2FA, reduces success rates of these frauds.

ESET WeLiveSecurity·Sep 9, 09:00 UTC · 7d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

[Webinar] Tales from the Frontlines: An exclusive briefing on Q2 incidents

Cisco Talos·Aug 3, 16:00 UTC · Aug 3, 2026Ransomware

What Did I Just Say? Self-Listening for Full-Duplex Speech Models

Researchers propose Self-Listening, a full-duplex speech approach feeding realized model speech back as input to improve interruption recovery.

Full-duplex spoken language models can listen and speak simultaneously, but asynchronous text generation, speech synthesis, and playback cause mismatches between what a model believes it said and what the user heard. The paper defines the resulting recovery problem as anchor interruption and proposes Self-Listening, which interleaves user speech, model text, and played speech as input streams. The authors also release AnchorSpeech, a benchmark with homogeneous training and test splits tracking which ordered response items were actually spoken. Experiments show self-listening models achieve better anchoring performance than full-duplex baselines.

Hugging Face daily papers·Sep 3, 20:00 UTC · 13d agoAI research

Communicating Under Pressure: Best Practices for Service Providers

CISA, FBI, and international partners issued guidance on crisis communications for service providers during IT and OT outages, emphasizing clarity, transparency, and backup channels.

CISA, the FBI, and international partners published guidance on planning and executing clear, timely, audience-appropriate communications during IT and OT service outages, whether caused by cyber threat actors, human error, or natural hazards. The guidance stresses clarity, accountability, and transparency, and warns that outages at one organization can cascade across interconnected systems. It recommends critical infrastructure owners assume telecommunications may be unreliable and integrate backup communication methods into crisis plans, and points to CISA's CI Fortify initiative for OT isolation and recovery resources.

CISA Advisories·Sep 2, 12:00 UTC · 14d agoAdvisory

How Zapier transformed core marketing processes with ChatGPT Work

Zapier's enterprise marketing team uses ChatGPT Work to cut lead-funnel drop-offs and automate reporting.

OpenAI published a customer story on how Zapier's enterprise marketing team adopted ChatGPT Work. Use cases include reducing lead funnel drop-offs, building campaign assets, and automating reporting. This is marketing case-study content rather than a product or research announcement.

OpenAI News·Aug 10, 00:00 UTC · Aug 10, 2026AI industry

Stampli cuts launch hours by 68% using ChatGPT Work

AP automation firm Stampli used OpenAI Codex and ChatGPT Work to cut product launch production hours by 68%.

Stampli, an accounts-payable automation company, compressed weeks of launch production into days using Codex and ChatGPT Work. Facing a fixed deadline with design resources committed elsewhere, the team reported a 68% reduction in launch hours. The piece is an OpenAI customer adoption case study.

OpenAI News·Aug 20, 00:00 UTC · 27d agoAI industry

Zscaler Agentic SOC combines AI agents with zero trust telemetry

Zscaler launched Agentic SOC, an AI-agent-driven security operations platform combining zero trust telemetry with frontier models from Anthropic and OpenAI.

Zscaler announced Agentic SOC, a security operations platform built around specialized AI agents for triage, root-cause investigation, verdict assignment, and automated threat containment. The platform pairs Zscaler's zero trust telemetry, drawn from roughly 750 billion daily transactions and a large decoy mesh network, with frontier models from Anthropic and OpenAI plus proprietary threat intelligence. It features closed-loop inline remediation that can isolate compromised users, block command-and-control traffic, and cut off lateral movement, alongside a context graph that correlates third-party data. Continuous threat hunting combines AI automation with human experts from Zscaler and Red Canary, and customer Maire Tecnimont is cited as an early adopter.

Help Net Security·Sep 9, 10:09 UTC · 7d agoTools

The Agentic SOC – From AI Theater to Real Defense

Recorded Future and Accenture experts outline how security teams can move beyond 'AI theater' toward agentic SOC operations guided by measurable KPIs.

Recorded Future published a blog featuring perspectives from its own and Accenture experts on building an agentic security operations center. The piece argues organizations should prioritize measurable KPIs and proactively mitigate risks from autonomous agents. It also discusses evolving the analyst role from managing alerts to managing agents.

Recorded Future·Sep 1, 00:00 UTC · 15d agoIndustry

WeChat worm could pwn a friend before they even answered the call

Calif researchers demoed WeWorm, a zero-click WeChat VoIP memory-corruption worm enabling account takeover; Tencent patched it August 21.

Security firm Calif found a memory corruption bug in WeChat's VoIP stack that let a trusted contact take over a user's account simply by calling them, without the call being answered. The demo worm then called the victim's contacts to self-propagate across iOS and Android; declining the call prevented infection. Tencent pushed fixes on August 21, and Calif said chaining the bug with other Android and iOS flaws could yield full device control. Calif used AI to find the vulnerability and build its first RCE exploit in about two days.

The Register · Security·Sep 9, 12:45 UTC · 7d agoExploit / PoC

[Control Systems] Phoenix Contact security advisory (AV26-927)

Canadian Cyber Centre warns Phoenix Contact, Pepperl+Fuchs, and Carlo Gavazzi I/O devices need firmware 1.7.4 to fix multiple vulnerabilities.

Canada's Cyber Centre issued advisory AV26-927 covering multiple vulnerabilities in Phoenix Contact ICE2/ICE3 and IOL MA8 EIP/PN devices, plus related Pepperl+Fuchs and Carlo Gavazzi YL212/YN115 products. Firmware versions prior to 1.7.4 are affected across roughly 15 models. Administrators are encouraged to review vendor advisories and apply available updates.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security·18:00 UTC · 5h agoAdvisory1

Nuisance-call blocker fined £190k for being a nuisance caller

UK regulators fined Elderly Aids £190,000 after the firm made 758,000 unwanted calls yearly selling call-blocking devices.

Elderly Aids, a company selling devices to block unwanted calls, was fined £190,000 for making around 758,000 nuisance calls per year. The enforcement action highlights ongoing regulatory scrutiny of telemarketing practices. No cyber incident or data exposure was involved.

The Register · Security·Aug 27, 11:04 UTC · 20d agoPolicy & legal

Cisco security advisory (AV26-876)

Canada's Cyber Centre relayed Cisco advisories covering a Nexus 9000 Silicon One RCE, IOS XR hardening, and denial-of-service flaws across IP phone lines.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security advisory AV26-876 lists Cisco vulnerabilities affecting IOS XR, Nexus 9000 Series switches, and several IP phone series. Included are a Nexus 9000 Silicon One remote code execution vulnerability, a September 2026 IOS XR security hardening release, and SIP software denial-of-service flaws in Desk Phone 9800, IP Phone 7800/8800, and Video Phone 8875. The Cyber Centre urges users and administrators to review the Cisco advisories and apply updates as they become available. No active exploitation is reported in the advisory.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security·Sep 3, 13:13 UTC · 13d agoAdvisory

The AI data center boom is colliding with cities scarred by big industry

Philadelphia activists rally against AI data center construction amid energy and pollution concerns, joining a wave of U.S. city moratoriums.

Residents of Philadelphia's Grays Ferry, home to a former oil refinery, launched the 'No Data Centers in Philly' campaign over pollution, noise, and resource concerns. BloombergNEF projects U.S. data centers will consume more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined by 2035. New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order pausing permits for large data center projects, and moratoriums have passed in Denver, Indianapolis, Asheville, Charlotte, and Reno.

TechCrunch · AI·Sep 15, 21:47 UTC · 1d agoAI industry

Healthcare organizations can now connect EHR and additional industry data to ChatGPT

OpenAI announced ChatGPT integrations allowing healthcare organizations to connect EHR and industry data so clinicians can access patient context and research securely.

OpenAI said healthcare organizations can now connect electronic health records and other industry data sources to ChatGPT. The feature is aimed at letting clinicians securely access patient context and medical research within the assistant. The announcement was published on OpenAI's news site without disclosure of a new model release.

OpenAI News·Sep 1, 12:00 UTC · 15d agoAI industry

Powering AI is an architecture problem

Sponsored analysis argues AI data centers need medium-voltage, inline power architecture after Virginia grid faults knocked over 3GW of load offline.

A sponsored MIT Technology Review piece recounts a July 22, 2026 transmission fault in Ashburn, Virginia that shed more than 3 GW of data center load, and a 2024 incident where one failed surge arrester dropped about 60 facilities and 1,500 MW. It argues legacy UPS-based power stacks fail at AI scale because campuses can swing 70% of load in milliseconds and trip offline during grid disturbances. The proposed fix moves protection to medium voltage (13.8 kV and above) in inline enclosures near substations, improving density, permitting timelines, and backup power economics. A full-scale system tested at the DOE National Laboratory of the Rockies cleared ERCOT large-load ride-through requirements.

MIT Technology Review · AI·Sep 10, 11:00 UTC · 6d agoAI industry1

Spring Ring: An Inside Look at Voice Phishing Campaigns in Microsoft Teams

Unit 42 details the Spring Ring voice phishing campaign abusing Microsoft Teams to deploy malware and target enterprise domain controllers.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 analyzed the Spring Ring campaign, which abuses Microsoft Teams and voice phishing (vishing) to compromise enterprise users. Attackers use Teams calls to social-engineer victims, then deploy malware and advance toward enterprise domain controllers. The report documents the campaign's tactics and provides detection guidance for defenders.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 31, 10:00 UTC · 16d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

Commvault security advisory (AV26-895)

Canada's Cyber Centre advisory AV26-895 warns Commvault Cloud builds before 11.36.123/11.40.72/11.44.20/11.46.20 are affected by a Command Center API authentication bypass.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security alerted users that Commvault Cloud versions 11.36, 11.40, 11.44 and 11.46, prior to fixed builds 11.36.123, 11.40.72, 11.44.20 and 11.46.20, are affected by issue CV_2026_07_1, a Command Center API authentication bypass. Administrators are encouraged to review the linked vendor advisories and apply the available updates.

Canadian Centre for Cyber Security·Sep 8, 18:11 UTC · 8d agoAdvisory

ChatGPT can now connect to your personal apps to mimic writing style

OpenAI is testing ChatGPT Writing Style, which mimics a user's voice using writing samples from connected Gmail, Slack, and Drive accounts.

OpenAI confirmed it is testing a Writing Style feature for ChatGPT that learns a user's voice from writing samples in connected apps. The onboarding flow references Messaging (Slack), Documents (Google Drive and Notion), and Email (Gmail) as example sources. It resembles Anthropic's Styles personalization feature but draws on existing writing inside connected services rather than uploaded samples. The feature is available to a small group of users with no announced general rollout date.

BleepingComputer·Sep 7, 10:36 UTC · 9d agoAI industry