Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone systems are cost-effective virtual phone systems that offer advanced features and remote access. However, all these innovations come with security risks. In fact, people are now realizing that VoIP services have many of the same security risks that more traditional network services do.
Here are some common VoIP network security risks and solutions that help mitigate them:
Interception
One of the biggest VoIP security risks is interception. The majority of VoIP traffic is sent through an internet connection with little to no encryption protecting the data. Because of this, hackers can intercept your VoIP calls and corrupt the communications and transactions taking place during the call.
Impersonation
One of the easiest ways for hackers to corrupt those communications and transactions is for them to impersonate a user. For instance, when a call is made through a VoIP system, a hacker can intercept it and continue the call with the user, who thinks they’ve gotten through to the person they want to reach.
If the user is making this call to access a commercial service, they may have no idea that they are speaking to an impersonator rather than the service person they wanted to speak with. When that happens, the user may expose their credit card information and other sensitive data to the hacker.
Overloading
If they don’t want to hijack individual phone calls and virtual phone lines, a hacker may decide to overload the entire VoIP server instead. Hackers often do this by sending high volumes of inauthentic packets to a VoIP server. This causes an overload, which can take the service offline.
That allows the hacker to take over the VoIP server and do anything they want with its services. They can control the calls and transfer them before the ring, and they can make and take calls as they see fit. This puts any voice traffic that passes through the hijacked server at serious risk.
VoIP Security Solutions
As daunting as these security risks may sound, you can prevent this from happening to your cloud phone system by implementing security measures that include:
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Voice data encryption
This includes VoIP traffic, signals, and packets. Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) is one protocol you can use to encrypt your data.
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Restrict call types
You can use your VoIP system’s security tools to restrict the types of calls you make and receive by user, device, time of day, and other factors.
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Virtual Private Network (VPN)
You should use a VPN for voice traffic that comes from remote devices. This will keep that remote data secure and accessible to members of your network.
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Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
If you already use MFA for your traditional data networks, then you should definitely work on implementing it for your business’s VoIP system.
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User awareness
Inform your employees and network users about the security tools and policies that you use and implement.
These are just a handful of the security measures you can take to protect your cloud-based phone services. You can partner with an IT services company such as Affiliated Communications to access a more comprehensive range of security solutions.
Outsourced VoIP Security Solutions for Your Houston-Area Business
Affiliated Communications offers outsourced data protection for your cloud-based networks, which includes VoIP and other cloud-based phone services. We manage your security so that you can get back to running your business. If you’d like more information about our managed security solutions, contact us today.
