Industry news

Businesses 'need to make sure they protect their VoIP networks'

Businesses in Europe need to act to make sure their voice over internet protocol (VoIP) systems are secure, an industry expert has suggested.

Writing on the voip-news.com site, Jim Higdon cited recent research from Sipera Systems which suggested that businesses across the globe faced a number of threats to their VoIP security.

These included denial of service attacks, VoIP eavesdropping, and VoIP attacks against service providers.

However, Mr Higdon said that there were a number of measures European businesses could abopt to secure their VoIP systems.

He explained that VoIP network should be protected "on three levels" and that this protection should cover network architecture, security protocols and user interaction.

"At the network level, hosting VoIP on a VPN (virtual private network) does a good job of separating VoIP's security holes from the underlying data network," Mr Higdon added.

"At the user level, company employees should be trained and assessed against high-risk security behaviour, like using Google Talk, Skype or other hosted IP voice technologies that could expose the company's VoIP network to outside attack."