Wholesale termination and cyber-attacks on SIP system

Every system that is relying on using the internet and computer systems is usually bound to raise a lot of serious concerns about the risk of being subjected to cyber attacks. However, VoIP is also no exception to this; the attacks on such systems using the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) are now happening badly with a great regularity.

The Security Intelligence Group of IBM has found that in the early phase of 2016, there were different attacks on SIP systems which accounted for nearly half of the security events detected. This is not much surprising because SIP is also known to be the frequently used communication protocols.

Understanding different types:

Moreover, the attacks on all the SIP systems are generally carried out using a specially created message. These messages cause the servers and the equipment which is already vulnerable, by not being updated with the advanced patches; for instance, to fail while leading to system outrages and loss of service. Using different proprietary protocols do not offer any guarantee of security and safety. According to IBM, the Cisco Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) was also vulnerable to SIP attacks too, although these attacks on the protocol have been greatly declining. These attacks usually come in the form of different probes, searching for weaknesses which the hackers can later exploit to compromise their whole system.

Vulnerabilities:                                                        

According to its technical nature, the VoIP routes calls using the same network as other network traffic or Internet. This would eventually leave it open to different vulnerabilities. Attackers can therefore obstruct, modify and capture the traffic. They can even launch different assaults that are aimed at the denial of service, and then make the service unavailable for all the legitimate users.

It’s also getting much common for the hackers to try and steal the VoIP service in order to make calls on someone else’s account. We call this a ‘toll fraud’. As it’s not a much famous technology with the scammers who can be able to spoof the caller IDs, so they can make it appear that calls are originating from some highly legitimate business source. This could simply facilitate the overall launch of phishing and different malicious attacks aimed at performing such fraudulent techniques.

Making the systems secure:                                

We have looked at the nature of these malicious attacks against wholesale termination systems, so, what would be better to keep the system safe & secure from harmful attacks and abuse? You can apply numerous techniques to do that.

The first level protection starts with your own network security. While ensuring that your network traffic is secure, it helps to further secure your voice traffic which is sharing space with. So, having a proper and effective firewall which is SIP-aware is the best step. This would eventually protect the overall network while enabling the incoming calls to get through.

Today there are many companies which are turning to encryption so that if your data was intercepted, then it is much meaningless to the hacker. This can be even performed in several ways and at a different number of levels, but it also needs to be applied to intensive care. You can also encrypt the signaling from the Internet gateway while using Session Initiation Protocol over Transport Layer Security (SIP over TLS). While depending on your wholesale termination service provider, you can even find that it’s a switch system performed this for you.