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Who's Listening To Your VoIP Calls?

TMCnews Featured Article


July 03, 2012

Who's Listening To Your VoIP Calls?

By Steve Anderson, Contributing TMCnet Writer


Security in VoIP – Voice over Internet Protocol – transmissions is, at best, a measure that doesn't get a lot of thought. While data security is often front-of-mind in a lot of enterprises, investing similar protection in VoIP networks doesn't always come to mind. That's a mistake that may be costing enterprises more than they expect.


As it turns out, intercepting a VoIP transmission is actually somewhat easier than intercepting a call placed over traditional phone lines. While regular phones are part of the public phone network, and thus require an actual physical connection be made, VoIP calls require only a protocol analyzer and the willingness to capture and analyze voice packets. This makes VoIP calling much more vulnerable to being overheard than regular phone calls are, and as such, requires specific security measures in order to protect them.

Encryption is the order of the day when it comes to protecting calls placed over VoIP. Since VoIP calling is essentially just voice traffic sent like data over a data network, similar – though not exactly the same – measures can be enacted to protect that voice traffic. VoIP encryption tools can be easily found, and with a wide variety on hand, finding just the right program to match specific needs should be a comparatively easy venture.

More specifically, there are some offerings that have distinguished themselves as being particularly useful. Zfone (News - Alert), for example, is available for free download, and is based on the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) program for email. The downside here is that both callers must be using Zfone for it to work, and many other businesses may not. Some VoIP systems such as Skype (News - Alert) include built-in encryption support, while some approaches work best at the network level, like TLS (Transport Layer Security) and IPsec (IP Security) to provide protection against unauthorized access. Perhaps the most ideal form of protection is SRTP, or Secure Real-time Transfer Protocol, as it has little effect on call quality while still protecting the transmission. Some have even elected to expand the protective capabilities of a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to protect voice transmissions, though the protection really only extends from gateway to gateway as opposed to the LAN.

With some comparatively simple measures in place, users can achieve a level of security over their VoIP content that they would have over their regular data transmissions. It's wise to ensure that all data is protected against loss or theft, regardless of the form it takes, and keeping VoIP transmissions safe may not be as hard as some think.

Panasonic (News - Alert) will be exhibiting at the ITEXPO West 2012. To be held Oct. 2-5 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, TX, ITEXPO (News - Alert) (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations.




Edited by Allison Boccamazzo







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