VoIP Security and Phreaking
“Phreaking” is a slang term that refers to tampering with a phone line and using it to make unauthorized calls. The illegal practice has been going on for decades and passed through many different iterations, including tone dialing and blue boxes. The latest version involves hacking a VoIP phone line.
VoIP is particularly vulnerable to phreaking because the majority of SIPs are not sufficiently encrypted. The SIP controls user authentication, so a computer hacker can gain access to the solution through a variety of different software applications. Many VoIP solutions also have security loopholes that phone phreakers can exploit. If they are successful, the phreaker can then make as many phone calls as they want at the company’s expense.
One notable example of this is Sunbelt Software, a Florida-based computer security software company. A few years ago they discovered that had an incredibly high phone bill due to long distance calls that were made to a variety of locations throughout the Middle East. They later found out that a hacker had gained access to their phone system through the remote access feature in the application. The fact that there were a computer security software vendor only made the publicity worse.
The constant danger of phreaking might make VoIP seem a little too risky of a proposition, but there are a number of ways to protect your phone line:
The first is to ensure that the VoIP software offers a high level of encryption. You can generally find out this information on the vendor’s website—they will list the security measures in place and how the software respond to hacking attempts. If they don’t list any encryption methods, you should probably move on to a different vendor, though you can always get a third-party solution to provide the service.
You can also check your billing statements on a regular basis. While it is true that some phreakers will perform a huge number of phone calls at once, a lot of them make phone calls at a more innocuous rate in the hopes that they will fly under the radar. If you see phone calls made to unexpected locations that your employees don’t remember making, your phone line may have been compromised.
Overall, VoIP is a powerful technology that allows small businesses to make and receive phone calls at a greatly reduce cost. These companies simply need to take the proper security precautions in order to limit the possibility of someone gaining access to that technology against their wishes.
