Until now, voice over internet protocol (VoIP) security has been overshadowed by the attractiveness of this new technology. But the intelligent users of today proactively raised the question of security of the internet telephony as a result of increasing vulnerability of the internet environment.
Let’s understand the vulnerabilities:
Starting with the basics, we know that these audio streams are accessible to anyone with network access. Voice over IP can be decoded by Eavesdroppers as they tap the audio conversations in an unsecured VoIP Environment. How about an eavesdropper overhearing the news of layoffs that management is planning? It can be dangerous as leaking out extremely confidential information of the management is really not what is expected of a sophisticated IT network. Hackers are all set to attack servers with irrelevant queries or requests making it inaccessible for legitimate users. This may lead to ruining the complete data structure of an organization.
What are the alternatives?
The VoIP communications may use one or more channels (TCP/UDP) connections which need to be secured – authenticated and encrypted. The VoIP network can be secured by:
- Authorization
- Transport Layer Security (TLS)
- Authentication
- Media Encryption (SRTP)
Authorization: The devices must be configured in a manner to allow traffic from a selected group of IP addresses. This mechanism shields the device from denial-of-service attacks to some extent.
Transport Layer Security: The TLS Protocol provides privacy and data integrity between two communicating applications. It allows only SIP signaling with other devices and permits applications to communicate in a way that prevents message forgery, tampering, and eavesdropping. With this, it will be mandatory for clients to set up a TLS/SSL connection to the server and exchange encrypted SIP messages on the secure connection.
Authentication: It requires the participating VoIP devices to authenticate each other before starting conversations. Thereby, it becomes nearly impossible for hackers to mislead/fake identities.
Media Encryption: SRTP (secure real-time transport protocol) is a security profile that adds confidentiality to the protocol and is ideal for protecting the voice over IP traffic. It also provides replay protection and achieves low packet and high throughput expansion by using fast–stream ciphers for encryption an implicit index for synchronization, and universal hash functions for message authentication. SRTP ensures confidentiality of the RTP payload, the integrity protection of the entire RTP packet (including protection against replayed RTP packets), and implicit authentication of the header. SRTP serves as a suitable choice for the most general scenarios as well as the most demanding ones.
Most of the VoIP vendors have pledged in to provide VoIP network services that are competitive enough to provide you a secure communication platform. The VoIP security issue is not “as” critical as it is hyped up. It’s just that hackers are alluded to interfere with the voice flowing through data networks. If you avail the services of a reliable VoIP service provider, the purpose of having an uninterrupted secure network will be solved.
Net Activity, Inc. comes along with high quality, reliable cloud-based solutions that future-proofs your communication systems. With our expert services, you will experience limitless call routing features, and an effective, intuitive user interface. For more details, please visit http://www.netactivity.us/services/voip-business-phone-services or call Harry Bhatia at 216 503 5150.
