Internet telephone system is becoming very popular. Today most enterprises, multinational organizations and corporate offices prefer to setup VOIP for its robust features such as low cost and excellent service. VOIP (voice over IP) has become among the most growing IT technologies. VOIP converts your voice into the digital signals. With the VOIP you can make a long distance calls at a very affordable cost as compared to the regular phones.
However VOIP has security concerns because as the digital voice signals travels through the internet, it can be intercepted and it has become easier for the hackers to get the credit card information, financial data and other secure data if a good firewall system is not enabled in the infrastructure of the VOIP.
If a good security system is not enabled then hackers can send viruses, spam, interrupt the voice communication and even they can spoil the billing system to make free calls.
These security threats are the major concerns of the VOIP service providers and they are increasing the security by tunneling and encryption methods to block the hackers and unauthorized access to a VOIP network. Despite all of these threats Voice Over IP is still a cost effective, robust and reliable system for the voice communication over the long distance.
With the convergence of voice and data, the security vulnerabilities that can be applied to data also applied to the voice. VOIP requires constant vigilance and monitoring the network for suspicious activities such as virus, spy ware, monitoring the operating system and VOIP hardware, unauthorized access and hacking.
To implement VOIP security system, you need to make a careful planning before you setup it. A US technology research firm predicts that the IP phones sold ratio from 9.9 millions in 2006 will grow 45.8 millions in 2010. According the survey of this technology research company, the 40 % of the corporate offices don’t have any security plan deployed with the VOIP setup.
Preventing the unauthorized access to the network is the first security measure in preventing a network. The second most important step is to encrypt the voice data and IP traffic with the IPsec and advance encryption standard (AES).
Another security method is to limiting the voice data to the single VLAN and it will make the voice traffic hidden from the network users and hence it provides an additional layer of the security. VLAN also help prioritize the VOIP data over the other network traffic. While implementing VLAN consider placing VLAN equipments behind a separate firewall so that no one can cross the VLAN boundaries and to get unauthorized access. Be sure that the firewall technology should support the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the International Telecommunication Union's H.323 protocol. Building redundancy can help in avoiding the hacker’s attack and devices failure.
Enterprises should strive to follow the best security practices to avoid any possible security attack. Voice Over IP is an application, which has to become the part of the network so good security practices should be in place. The VOIP vendors have started to implement the media and signaling encryption features into the devices.