Industry news

IETF set to focus on protecting VoIP users from spam

In the coming months, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is set to investigate possible ways to prevent spam attacks against businesses' VoIP systems - also known as 'spit' attacks.

At its recent meeting, the IETF said that it was hard to assess the amount of VoIP attacks which were taking place, but added that pre-emptive action was still necessary.

Website heise.de reported that a representative of the NEC Lab in Heidelberg told the meeting that some companies had been developing defenses against 'spit' attacks for the last three years.

He added that the lab believed cybercriminals were set to increasingly target VoIP systems.

According to the site, Henning Schulzrinne of Columbia University added: "The costs incurred if we do nothing are very high … Do we really want to wait until we have a VoIP botnet problem?"

Some solutions to protect VoIP users include the identification and authentication of callers and statistical tactics that involve blocking mass calls emanating from one account.