Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, delivers voice communications via a digital IP network connected to the internet. IP technologies facilitate data delivery services using the same switching & routing mythologies designed for network computers. When multiplexed, voice, fax, SMS, voice-messaging and multimedia data can be transmitted over a broadband public Internet. Rather using a public switched telephone network (PSTN), VoIP systems are essentially ordinary nodes of the network.
VoIP telephone calls vs traditional telephony.
The encoding technology allows the digitization analog voice signals into compressed data packets. The
digital data is then transmitted as IP packets over a switched network. Once
processed, packets are transported as media streams without any additional
specialized equipment.
Protecting data encoding and packet stream transmission
The technology rules for encapsulation and compression, of the audio and video
signals, into a data stream for delivery, are called codecs. A functional VoIP
infrastructure security software solution can monitor and police packet
behavior in the data stream. Technology to detect from denial of service attacks DoS), intrusion or unauthorized
internal use can be deployed.
Some of the Challenges in VoIP Security
Business threats to VoIP security must be first understood and analyzed. Once
identified, the necessary technical solutions must be presented to guard
against threats. Whether it is hardware failure, a software failure or human
error, business communications threat scenarios in the information technology
environment must be accurately identified.Any VoIP infrastructure security software
solutions provide the
necessary tools to pinpoint and isolate threats and vulnerabilities throughout
the entire transport lifecycle.
VoIP Infrastructure security failure and impact
The impact of the potential risk of a system has been compromised must be
measured to identify the impact. The financial loss and recovery cost must
reflect and well documented in a realist disaster situation. Damage assessment and recovery should also be taken into account
along with the possibility of long-term implications. A properly secured
business service involving would a have negative impact on public trust and are
sometimes unrecoverable.
The primary threats and attacks to key components
IP vulnerabilities occur primarily when the core IP services have been
compromised. Security systems should be hardened against crucial system that
verify the Domain Name Server (DNS), and the TCP handshake. Attacks, such as
denial-of-service (DoS), unauthorized access, eavesdropping, masquerading, and
fraud are the most common when a breach has occurred.
A dashboard that shows VoIP infrastructure security
The software should allow organization metrics to be entered to give a
real-world value as on how critical VoIP is the organization. The system should
display what critical information is being carried by the system, network, or
service at any given time.
Autonomous contact information and communication, to externally managed support
technologies and services, such as ISPs or related mechanisms. The security
apparatus should automatically alert all essential parties when a failure
occurs. The VoIP security software should be capable of monitoring
key-performance indicators.
A predetermination of responsibility should be outlined in a well-defined
service level agreement (SLA). Simulated test & failures should
realistically reflect the cost of downtime and data loss. the VoIP should be
able to archive and retrieve on-demand any past security incidents and
determined the recovery response time. The supporting infrastructure
technologies that are exposed to greatest threats and all personnel with access
to these technologies must be highly certified.