Ready for Wireless VoIP?

Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Sandra Kay Miller

           

Similarly, access points may need to be installed in areas not normally used by wireless devices (hallways, elevators, stairwells) in order to ensure continuous coverage for someone making a call in transit.

Equally important and also a major contributor to QoS is security. When voice calls are packetized and routed over data networks, they are exposed to many of the same cyber threats faced by data transmissions. Three of the biggest issues facing wVoIP are Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, unsolicited content and fraud.

To date, specific DoS attacks against wVoIP systems have been rare, but security researchers have shown that even small-scale DoS attacks can impact calls significantly. To help mitigate such a threat, Cisco suggests separating all VoIP — both wired and wireless — onto a separate VLAN.

IT personnel are familiar with the process of “hardening” systems, or removing unnecessary applications to limit vulnerabilities. David Endler, director of security research for 3Com's security division TippingPoint, points out the same techniques can be initiated on VoIP equipment, especially mobile IP handsets with built-in Web servers for remote management.

Unfortunately, the new avenue of communication — VoIP — comes with the spammers and fraudsters. “Spit” (spam over IP telephony) is expected to be even more troublesome than its predecessors, spam and spim (spam over instant messaging) due to the real-time nature of phone calls routed through WiFi access points. Even more frightening, spit is able to be spread to millions of VoIP handsets through compromised devices using methods similar to botnet attacks.

So it comes as no surprise that organizations implementing wVoIP will also be on the frontlines in combating new types of fraud that exploit new technologies with old tricks, such as man-in-the-middle attacks for eavesdropping, “vishing” (sending phishing messages using VoIP) and brute force attacks to gain access to wVoIP networks for unauthorized calls.

Thanks to a multitude of new protocols and resources, wVoIP technologies are ripe targets for a new generation of exploits. “From an architectural perspective, care must be taken to prevent access to corporate network resources from the VoIP network,” says Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism at Secure Computing, a security solution provider.

Gartner Research Director Robin Simpson surmises, “The one good thing about all these different technologies is that at the core they are all fundamentally IP technologies.”

That means that traditional IP network security tools are already developed and, in most cases, are currently in place.

After several years with experimental large-scale wVoIP deployments, such as the one rolled out by Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, the benefits of wVoIP are attracting the attention of a number of industries. Hospitals have begun experimenting with voice-activated badges for hands-free, real-time communication and instant access to medical records. Hotels and retailers are equipping frontline employees with wVoIP technologies in order for them to better deliver services to guests and consumers.

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