In Depth

Voice over IP Security

Much ink has been spilled over the vulnerabilities created by running voice traffic over data networks. But smart CSOs are, in fact, going to use voice over IPand similar forthcoming technologiesto their benefit.

By Fred Hapgood

In other words, VoIP is just the point technology of a broad-based revolution in networking that is coming regardless of how deeply an enterprise buys into this or that telephony system. This revolution is probably going to require an across-the-board reappraisal of security practices and their relation to everyday operating procedures.

As a rule, sentences like that last one make CSOs wince, since typically, they get very little support in an organization for radical rewriting of security policies. VoIP might be different; when phone calls move onto the network and the "dial-tone reliability" of, well, dial tones themselves are threatened, people might be willing to take security more seriously. If they do, that will be the most important contribution of all that VoIP technology can make to the profession.

Other stories by Fred Hapgood

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