VoIP Security Measures & Best Practices To Follow

VoIP Security Measures & Best Practices To Follow

Last post, we discussed some of the disadvantages of VoIP; one of the more notable disadvantages being the security risks VoIP can present. Considering the importance of this issue, I felt the need to discuss VoIP security more in-depth.

Types of Security Threats

Before understanding how to best protect your VoIP network, it’s important to first understand what threats you even need to lookout for.

There are a variety, but we will go over some of the more common security concerns.

Phishing/Scammers

You probably hear this term a lot. You or someone you know may have been a victim of phishing at some point. It is by far one of the most common types of security threats, which is why it’s first on the list.

Essentially, phishing is when a hacker or scammer impersonates someone or something else in order to steal your information.

In regards to VoIP, scammers may attempt to get sensitive or confidential information from you by calling you or someone in your organization. Generally, they will call from a number similar to yours or a number similar to that of someone important like a government agency.

Then, posing as someone important, they will request information such as: passwords, bank account numbers, social security numbers, etc.

Their end goal is to walk away with any information they can use to steal from you or hold ransom.

Yeah, it’s not fun.

If you want to learn more about phishing, click here.

Malware

Next, another common security risk to VoIP you probably hear a lot about is malware. Malware is a threat to almost any device with an internet connection, and VoIP is no different.

Malware programs attempt to penetrate and disrupt your network, as well as gain access to your personal data.

Many malware programs also leave backdoors in your network, making it much easier for hackers to continually steal data or information from your phone calls.

Having malware infect your network is a very serious issue, and it should not be taken lightly.

DOS & Call Tampering

Now, while DOS and call tampering are technically two separate issues, they both impact a user’s ability to make calls.

DOS is short for “denial of service”. This is when hackers overload a network and use all of its available bandwidth. In turn, this prevents the victim from receiving any inbound calls or making any outbound calls.

If an attack is particularly bad, some hackers are even able to gain administrative access to your phone network and cause even more havoc.

On the other hand, call tampering is when hackers attempt to disrupt calls you’re currently in. A hacker’s goal here is to render your phone calls useless by reducing the call quality to the point where it’s unintelligible.

VoIP Security Threat Protections

Okay, now that we’ve gotten all the scary stuff out of the way, let’s focus on ways to protect your network.

Now, some of this will be redundant from our previous blog post, but it really is important information to know.

Phishing Prevention/ Protection

Phishing protection is interesting. While there are programs out there to help identify phishing, much of the protection against phishing involves common sense.

Granted, talented scammers can sound really convincing, but asking for any sensitive information or details over the phone should be a red flag.

If you suspect fraud, end the call and report it to your superiors or I.T staff, and don’t give the caller any information they request.

Protection Against Malware, DOS and Call Tampering

Anti-Malware/Virus Software

For malware protection, there is a solution available that’s exclusive to malware. That protection is having an anti-virus software on all of your machines. How does this relate to phones you may ask?

Well, malware can potentially target your machines first and spread throughout your network, or vice versa. Having an anti-virus software like Malwarebytes can help protect your individual devices so it can’t spread throughout your network and infect your other devices such as your phones.

Encryption

Next, as we’ve already discussed, many hackers will try and gain access to your phone network in order to steal or track your phone data for sensitive information.

Thankfully, there are plenty of protection options out there. Encryption in this instance is one of the best.

Having an encrypted phone network makes it so that so that all of your phone data and transmissions are masked and directed only to the person you’re talking to. The cool part is, even if someone is able to break into your phone network to listen in or steal data, it is completely useless to them as a result of the encryption.

However, as to how your phone data is encrypted is based on what methods of encryption your VoIP service provider uses.

Network Security

Lastly, having strong network security can go a long way to protecting against Malware, DOS, and call tampering.

How do network security measures do this you may ask? Well, there are a variety options, but the two big ones are through VPNs and firewalls.

We already touched on these in the last post, but I will go over them again briefly.

A VPN encrypts all of your network traffic and masks your IP address. This is a great tool for protecting yourself, especially if you’re forced to connect to a low security network.

A VPN also makes it much harder for hackers to gain access to your phone network and potentially infect it or mess with your phone calls.

Finally, we have firewalls. Firewalls monitor all of your internet traffic based on perimeters you set. They can either permit access to traffic they deem safe, or restrict traffic they deem hazardous. Firewalls can be either software or hardware based.

One thing to note about firewalls is, while they can be a vital network security tool, they do require some technical prowess to set up correctly.

Despite this, they are by far one of the best resources to protect not just your VoIP network, but your entire internet network in general.

Ending Thoughts

Oh boy, there are a lot of threats to VoIP security out there.

However, as you have read, there are plenty of options to protect yourself and combat these threats.

Anti-virus, encryption, and firewalls are just to name a few. But they all serve their purposes, and can go a long way between having a bad day and a good day.

So, what do you think? What is the best type of security measure on this list?