Network Security, the key to VoIP adoption
With growing Internet infrastructure and new technologies, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) has gained tremendous popularity among businesses. Regardless of size and industry, organizations are migrating their communication network from traditional PSTNs to VoIP. The wide-ranging benefits of the system are bound to attract businesses from across the board – reliability combined with steep cost savings and a plethora of productivity-enhancing features make it the communication network of choice for enterprises.
But, in today’s landscape of increasing cyber-attacks, VoIP must also strengthen its security protocols to ensure businesses are not left vulnerable to malicious cyber agents.
Main Security Threats faced by VoIP
VoIP networks are open to the following threats
- Identity and service threat – this usually involves eavesdropping and phreaking – Eavesdropping is a scenario in which attackers infiltrate the VoIP lines to listen in to conversations to gain access to sensitive business data or private information and accounts to carry out corporate sabotage or identity theft. Phreaking is a term used for the practice of passing off call charges to other accounts by getting unauthorized access to their VoIP service.
- Viruses and Malware – the bane of all Internet-based services – VoIP services are also open to attacks by malware, worms, and viruses.
- Denial of Service – Another threat that is used most often against Internet-based services – DOS can bring the communication network to a halt by flooding it with unnecessary messages.
- Call tampering – call tampering refers to the practice of interrupting the call by injecting noise packets in the network or withholding call packets to cause call delays and poor call quality. Call hijacking is another form of call tampering in which an outside party enters the call and tricks the person on the other line by masquerading as the original caller.
How are VoIP service providers countering these security challenges?
Service Providers understand that the continued popularity of VoIP services depends, to a large degree, on how secure and comfortable businesses feel while using these services. The VoIP providers and organizations have given top priority to securing their communication networks and have spent the considerable amount of effort and money in putting together some of the most cutting-edge security solutions to safeguard their systems.
The threats listed above can be taken care of by a judicious mix of preventive measures –
- SBCs (Session Border Controllers) – SBCs manage VoIP protocol signals and with in-built security firewalls they are the first and one of the most effective lines of defense against cyber threats.
- Anti-virus – installing and operating an updated anti-virus or anti-malware on all connected computer hardware is especially important as they can enter the VoIP network through unsecured channels.
- Encryption – usually provided by the service providers as an add-on service to secure the network and is highly recommended for enterprise users. VoIP encryption is especially important when the organization has many users connecting from outside the office network – from mobiles or from home devices.
- Call restrictions, authorization, and passwords – businesses must restrict access to the VoIP network by making sure that only the required people are given access to the network. This along with call restrictions, to track and monitor call activity and stringent password policies can ensure that people within the organizations are made aware of the importance of keeping the network secure.
- Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) – DPI monitors the network and can identify extra or fraudulent data packets and flag them for review.
- VoIP authentication protocols – the most stringent of these protocols is the so-called three-way handshake – Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP) uses a three-step process to test the legitimacy of the incoming messages and is far superior to basic password protection which is widely used.
Conclusion
While the future of VoIP services is secure – the benefits of the technology ensures that – security concerns that have dogged all Internet-based services are also giving network engineers sleepless nights. From cloud platforms to on-premise IT infrastructures, all systems have vulnerabilities that can be exploited and as Cyber-attacks become more aggressive and better organized no one is truly safe.
It is estimated that the global cost of cybercrime will reach $2 trillion by 2019 – keeping these numbers in mind organizations can no longer count on just plain old luck to keep their businesses safe, they need to be prepared for the worst. And this is especially true for mission-critical functions like communication!
Here, VOIP is clearly the solution of choice for organizations looking for a secure communications network.
The 3 core components that make up Enterprise Collaboration Services
A lot is being written these days about the increasingly important role of communication and collaboration services in running a business smoothly. As the world becomes more connected and doing business across vast geographies becomes the norm – the expectation of the employees, clients and end customers also rise – employees and clients demand to be connected 24×7 from anywhere in the world and customers expect near instantaneous resolution of their problems.
In this scenario, most organizations need to revaluate their collaboration systems. Several ICT players have harnessed technology to provide solutions that allow real time collaboration across devices – making it easier for people to work together without wasting time and money in traveling across distances.
Many of you might wonder what services are available under the umbrella of collaboration services and this is just what we will address below.
Components of Collaboration solutions
A comprehensive end-to-end Collaboration solution has three main components –
Audio Visual Collaboration Solutions
A few years ago, AV collaboration meant basic video conferencing solutions from fixed meeting or boardrooms, but service providers are now leveraging latest digital technologies such as cloud computing to offer exceptional communication and collaboration services to users, where they are – either within office or outside.
This includes a Wide Range of Services and Solutions with Capex and Pay-as-You-go models–
- Basic Video conferencing
- Mobility solutions to connect people on the go
- High end bridging solutions
- Large display solutions for niche applications such as NOCs and digital signage.
- AV integration solutions for creating immersive communication environments for large areas such as board rooms, VC rooms, auditoriums etc.
Collaboration services also offer additional functionalities and benefits – recording and streaming facilities, integration with business applications, flexible and user-friendly interface etc. And businesses have added flexibility in terms of using these services either as an on-premise, hosted or hybrid model.
Hosted Contact center solutions
The second element of collaboration services is tailored to the needs of businesses – small, medium or large – whose business models revolve around customer interactions which necessitates the need to run customer care centers.
Customer experience during their interactions with provider organizations are key business drivers and hence critical to businesses. To enable enhanced customer experience, Contact center solutions have evolved over years with the help of state-of-the-art technology. These technologies are normally Capex intensive. However, today businesses can opt for Contact center-as-a-service model which has no upfront CAPEX costs and is completely flexible and scalable. This as-a-service model allows businesses to outsource all the technological aspects of contact centers and concentrate on their core business operations.
VoIP security and TDM to IP conversion with SBCs
VoIP services have taken on a mission critical role in many organizations, hence it is imperative to protect and isolate the VoIP infrastructure from external threats and allow seamless communication between multiple voice devices.
VoIP security forms an important component of Collaboration services. With SBCs (Session Border controllers) organizations can centrally manage VoIP policies and bandwidth for VoIP devices and applications and protect the network from cyber-attacks.
One of the hallmarks of a successful enterprise is how well its employees work together as a team. Teamwork and Collaboration is essential for running a successful organization, more so in today’s global workplace. Professional collaboration solutions based on the latest technology delivers on several fronts – cost, productivity and flexibility – and for many organizations is one of the smartest business moves for staying competitive in the current global marketplace.
When it comes to providing collaboration and communication services to organizations spread over continents, Sify which is a pioneer in Voice and Data services, with its decades of experience in data communication solutions, network integration services, Data Center services and application integration services can provide enterprise grade collaboration services to verticals ranging from Healthcare, IT/ITes, Manufacturing, Retail, Education and more.
VoIP services – How does it work?
The world over, communication – reliable and secure – is taking on a more critical role in the functioning of organizations and businesses. The more geographically spread your organization is, the more important it becomes to keep communication networks up and running.
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has gained tremendous traction over the last decade and has become a popular choice for organizations looking for cost-effective and reliable communication networks to manage their growing business – VoIP services market is predicted to expand 10 % every year until 2021 and touch $140 billion.
What is VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)?
VoIP services use Internet connections to make phone calls. The analog voice signal is turned into data packets and transmitted over the Internet, enterprise local networks or Wide area networks. Apart from voice data, VoIP also transmits multimedia content over IP networks.
How does VoIP work?
VoIP has become an increasingly popular choice for business communications and provides a stable alternative for traditional telephone networks known as Public Switched Telephone Networks(PSTN).
VoIP provides a reliable and secure communication channel with highly cost-effective models. To understand how VoIP can achieve this, one needs to look at the technology behind the services.
VoIP uses a codec to encapsulate audio into data packets and transmits them across an IP network and decapsulates them back into audio at the other end of the connection. VoIP uses standard codecs by the International Telecommunication Union, such as G.711 for transmitting uncompressed packets, or G.729 for compressed packets. This compression is typically used to decrease bandwidth requirements.
After it is encapsulated onto IP, voice data is transmitted via the real-time transport protocol or through its encrypted variant, secure real-time transport protocol. The most common communication protocol is Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and is used for signaling that is necessary to create, maintain and end calls.
In an enterprise setup, VoIP emulates the traditional telephone networks with dedicated instruments – endpoints include applications running on mobile devices or dedicated desktop VoIP phones. VoIP is also available as a computer to computer service wherein you don’t need any extra hardware – calls can be made directly from the computer with just a microphone or a soundcard – the most popular example of this is Skype!
In many organizations, there may be an existing PBX system and VoIP system can use a SIP codec to connect with the PBX and allow it to manage user phone numbers; gateways to connect networks and provide failover in the event of a network outage.
VoIP networks have several other components such as session border controllers to provide security, call-policy management and inter-operator network connections. VoIP also has a host of additional functionalities which help users and management to operate smoothly – these are location-tracking databases for call routing and management platforms to collect call-performance statistics for voice-quality management.
Conclusion
A peek into the VoIP technology lays bare the reason for its popularity, especially among businesses – while cost savings may be one of the main reasons for migrating to VoIP (on an average, businesses can save between 50 – 75 % after switching to VoIP), businesses have consistently seen enormous jumps in productivity thanks to additional functionalities such as unified communication and telecommuting. In the current market scenario, where customers expect quick responses and a seamless customer experience is key to business success, VoIP has quickly become the only communication choice for most organizations.
As India’s first ICT Company to be listed on NASDAQ, Sify has years of experience in providing reliable and secure Network Integration services to enterprises across industry verticals.
Our cutting-edge networking services ensure reliable data connectivity services as well as the best-in-class Voice services in India – all available as cost-effective payment models aligned to scale with the growing needs of individual businesses.
