by johnmce

Voice over IP telephone services are revolutionizing how the world communicates, individuals, and businesses are embracing the capabilities and harnessing the power of the internet. Despite voice over IP being a great technological breakthrough, security is still a major concern, yet with the proper precautions it should not have to be.

Most users implementing VOIP these days are primarily concerned about voice quality, latency and interoperability. However we shouldn't overlook the security risks that can crop up when the voice and data worlds converge, users and analysts say.

With voice over IP, voice traffic is carried over a packet-switched data network via Internet Protocol. VOIP networks treat voice as another form of data but use sophisticated voice-compression algorithms to ensure optimal bandwidth utilization. As a result, VOIP networks are able to carry many more voice calls than traditional switched circuit networks. Voice over IP also enables enhanced services such as unified communications.

Securing voice traffic on such networks isn't very different from securing any data traffic on an IP network. In a VOIP world, private branch exchanges are replaced by server-based IP PBXs running on Windows NT or a vendor 's proprietary operating system. Such call management boxes, which are used both for serving up VOIP services and for logging call information, are susceptible to virus attacks and hackers. Break-ins of these servers could result in the loss or compromise of potentially sensitive data.. Consequently, it 's important that such equipment is properly locked down, placed behind firewalls, patched against vulnerabilities and frequently monitored using intrusion-detection systems.

The University of Houston went one step further and made sure that its call manager and its entire VOIP network aren't directly accessible from the Internet. The school has put its IP PBXs in a different domain than its other servers and has limited administration access to the servers.

VOIP gateway technologies are also a potential weak point. When VOIP is used externally, gateway technologies convert data packets from the IP network into voice before sending them over a public switched telephone network. When VOIP is used internally, the gateways basically route packetised voice data between the source and the destination.

The concern here is that such gateways can be hacked into by malicious attackers in order to make free telephone calls. The trick to protecting against this lies in having strict access-control lists and making sure the gateway is configured in such a fashion that only the people on this list are permitted to make and receive VOIP calls.

As with traditional telephony, eavesdropping is a concern for organizations using VOIP-and the consequences can be greater. Because voice travels in packets over the data network, hackers can use data-sniffing and other hacking tools to identify, modify, store and play back voice traffic traversing the network.

Ultimately, it 's important to remember that securing a VOIP infrastructure involves nothing that is drastically different from the measures corporations have always taken to protect their data. To sum up, There are a few simple things any corporation can take to protect their VOIP network, firstly separating and isolating voice traffic onto a virtual LAN is one way of mitigating the risk, of unauthorized access. Secondly using access lists that define exactly who is entitled to access the network will stamp out external threats. Finally using encryption, as you should with any sensitive data, adds another layer to your secure communication.

About the Author

John Mce writes on behalf of G3 telecommunications Find out about enterprise & business VOIP solutions & IP telephone systems at G3 Telecommunications.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities are a key benefit of AVAD Technologies Hosted IP PBX telephony solution. Unlike traditional telecommunications systems and premise VoIP solutions, a hosted PBX solution from AVAD Technologies ensures that your phone service is always available, even if your physical office location has been rendered inoperable.

What happens if I loose power or my office become inoperable.

Because AVAD is a Hosted VoIP system, callers to your business will still be able to reach any employee and leave a message. Your employees will also be able to retrieve their messages. Your primary phone numbers, including toll free numbers can be re-routed to an alternate location in a matter of minutes. AVAD Technologies Hosted IP PBX can be pre-programmed to forward calls if the primary users phone becomes inoperable for any reason. This means that in the event that your office location becomes disabled, no human intervention is required. In addition, all PBX services (Auto-Attendants, Hunt Groups and voice mail accounts) will continue to function.

Easily Set Up a New Location

If you are able to retrieve your IP phone sets, they can be plugged into any high speed internet connect and function as if they were in their original location. Your employees can even take their phones to their home offices, provided they have a high speed internet connection, and operate as if they were in their offices. Callers to your company will not be aware that your primary office location is no longer operational.

If you are unable to retrieve your IP Phones, AVAD can ship replacement phones to any location in as little as 48-hours. When the replacement phones arrive, simply connect them to any high speed internet connection and they will operate as if they were in your original office location.

To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP system please call (800) 733-4136.

Criminals are taking advantage of a bug in the Asterisk Voice over IP phone systems that lets them make thousands of telescam phone calls in an hour using an unsuspecting businesses telephone system, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation warned Friday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations didn't say which versions of Asterisk were vulnerable to the attack, but it advised users to upgrade to the latest version of the VoIP software. Asterisk is an open-source system that lets users turn a Linux computer into a business VoIP telephone system.

In these vishing attacks, scammers hack a business VoIP system running on Asterisk to set up a phony call-center and then use phishing e-mails to trick victims (business customers) into calling the center believe they were calling a legitimate company. Once there, they are prompted to give private information, such as banking and credit card user names and passwords. But in the scam described by the FBI, they apparently are taking over legitimate Asterisk systems in order to directly dial victims.

"Early versions of Asterisk software are known to have several vulnerabilities," the FBI said in an advisory posted Friday to the Internet Crime Complaint Center. "The vulnerability has been exploited by a number of cyber criminals to use the system as an auto-dialer, generating thousands of vishing telephone calls to consumers within one hour." This has ruined several companies as their customers have been scammed by cyber crimminals accessing a legitimate company database.

The software, developed by Digium, has been available for nearly a decade, and a number of critical flaws have been found in the software. In March, researchers at Mu Security reported a bug that could allow an attacker to take control of an Asterisk system.

Digium representatives were not immediately available to comment for this story.

Business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities are a key benefit of AVAD Technologies Hosted IP PBX telephony solution. Unlike traditional telecommunications systems and premise VoIP solutions, a hosted PBX solution from AVAD Technologies ensures that your phone service is always available, even if your physical office location has been rendered inoperable.

What happens if I loose power or my office becomes inoperable?

Because AVAD is a Hosted VoIP system, callers to your business will still be able to reach any employee and leave a message. Your employees will also be able to retrieve their messages. Your primary phone numbers, including toll free numbers can be re-routed to an alternate location in a matter of minutes. AVAD Technologies Hosted IP PBX can be pre-programmed to forward calls if the primary users phone becomes inoperable for any reason. This means that in the event that your office location becomes disabled, no human intervention is required. In addition, all Business PBX Features (Auto-Attendants, Hunt Groups and voice mail accounts) will continue to function.

Easily Set Up New Locations

If you are able to retrieve your IP phone sets, they can be plugged into any high speed internet connect and function as if they were in their original location. Your employees can even take their phones to their home offices, provided they have a high speed internet connection, and operate as if they were in their offices. Callers to your company will not be aware that your primary office location is no longer operational.

If you are unable to retrieve your IP Phones, AVAD can ship replacement phones to any location in as little as 48-hours. When the replacement phones arrive, simply connect them to any high speed internet connection and they will operate as if they were in your original office location.

To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP system please call (800) 733-4136.

Business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities are a key benefit of AVAD Technologies Hosted IP PBX telephony solution. Unlike traditional telecommunications systems and premise VoIP solutions, a hosted PBX solution from AVAD Technologies ensures that your phone service is always available, even if your physical office location has been rendered inoperable.

What happens if I loose power or my office become inoperable.

Because AVAD is a Hosted VoIP system, callers to your business will still be able to reach any employee and leave a message. Your employees will also be able to retrieve their messages. Your primary phone numbers, including toll free numbers can be re-routed to an alternate location in a matter of minutes. AVAD Technologies Hosted IP PBX can be pre-programmed to forward calls if the primary users phone becomes inoperable for any reason. This means that in the event that your office location becomes disabled, no human intervention is required.

In addition, all PBX services (Auto-Attendants, Hunt Groups and voice mail accounts) will continue to function.

Easily Set Up a New Location

If you are able to retrieve your IP phone sets, they can be plugged into any high speed internet connect and function as if they were in their original location. Your employees can even take their phones to their home offices, provided they have a high speed internet connection, and operate as if they were in their offices. Callers to your company will not be aware that your primary office location is no longer operational.

If you are unable to retrieve your IP Phones, AVAD can ship replacement phones to any location in as little as 48-hours. When the replacement phones arrive, simply connect them to any high speed internet connection and they will operate as if they were in your original office location.

To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP system please call (800) 733-4136.