Historically one of the questions asked about anything internet related, including VoIP is, how secure is it? So, this week we will pre-empt this question that you will more than likely be asked and give you a comprehensive answer to; How Secure Is VoIP?
VoIP Data Breaches
You may or may not have seen the news stories earlier in the year about WhatsApp being hacked with a single phone call (and people often forget that the most popular communications application in the world is VoIP) or the mysterious data breach that compromised a popular VoIP open source code used by a global VoIP corporation.
But these data breaches are few and far between, especially when compared to the personal data breaches reported pretty much every day by businesses.
So, in isolation people may see a VoIP data breach story and raise genuine concerns but when you read beyond the headline in both of those cases, you will see that the problems were; reported, resolved and solutions put into place to make sure that that particular type of hack doesn’t occur again.
Are Traditional Land Lines More Secure Than VoIP?
The answer to this question is no. Of course, no system that relies on the internet is going to be 100% secure (and anyone that says otherwise is being a little bit economical with the truth), but standard phone lines aren’t 100% secure either.
Phone calls can be hacked of course and whereas with VoIP there are numerous security measures that can be put in place, with landlines the only way to prevent this is to physically restrict access to buildings and equipment.
How To Make VoIP Secure?
There are several steps that can be put in place to ensure that any VoIP communications are as secure as possible.
As a VoIP reseller it will be important to have a good working relationship with the I.T Department of any potential customer.
Initial enquiries may come from any branch of a business, but you will need to establish good lines of communication with their I.T to ensure that VoIP solutions are linked in with other internet security policies and procedures.
It is also important that you don’t end up in a situation where the IT Dept shift all responsibility on to you and vice versa.
VoIP Security With Firewalls
The biggest line (or wall) of defence for anything internet related is to have a secure firewall. Most companies will have one in place, but it is best to check as some smaller companies may not have any IT security measures in place.
If they do have a firewall, then it is important that it is regularly updated and tested. The same will apply for any antivirus checker, windows or mac update.
Similarly, any other software that is in use will need to be kept up to date to ensure that internal applications aren’t prone to being hacked or compromised.
VoIP Call Behaviour Monitoring
If you mention call behaviour monitoring it is important to differentiate this from call monitoring. Call behaviour monitoring is used to analyse the amount of call workload on a VoIP system.
It can be used to see if there is an unexpected peak in the system and alert the IT Dept of Communications Manager.
VoIP call behaviour monitoring is also used to monitor and analyse the ip range of any incoming or outgoing calls. Every device connected to the internet will have an ip address that is unique to that device.
They are usually provided by the internet provider. Usually, and this is good IT security practice, a company will have a range of ip addresses (a series of numbers like 1.1.4.10) that they give to any devices that are used on their network.
Similarly, any incoming calls will have a range of ip addresses so that any unusual ip address will stand out and be picked up by the call behaviour monitoring.
The ip address is also used to identify the location of any incoming or outgoing communications.
So, for example if most of the communications to and from a company are UK based and the call behaviour monitoring spots an ip address located in Russia it will be looked into as suspicious behaviour.
Get In Touch
Hopefully all of these preventative measures we have mentioned will be useful when you are answering a customer who asks how secure is VoIP?
We do have a Wealth of useful information about VoIP on our website and if you would like a chat to find out more about our VoIP reseller propositions and the systems and solutions that we provide then please do not hesitate to get in touch.
You can call us on 03300881182, email us at sales@vipvoip.co.uk or use our online contact form located here.