Thursday, July 24, 2008

VoIP Eavesdropping - How Difficult Is It?

by Stephan Varty, Vulnerability Analyst, in Nortel's Voice Security Blog...
Many people assume a certain level of confidentiality is assured when they use their phone. Concerns have been raised about the increased risk of someone eavesdropping on a VoIP call compared to a traditional PSTN call. Although the concern applies similarly to other VoIP protocols such as UNIStim, H.323, or SCCP as well, what follows is an opinion on the susceptibility of a SIP call to remote eavesdropping...

...due to common vulnerabilities such as missing or outdated patches, misconfiguration, and undetected software defects, it is likely that in many cases a determined sophisticated attacker would be capable of eavesdropping on unencrypted SIP calls. (more)

Lessons:
• Employ encryption.
• Install all software patches and updates.
• Double check your configurations.

Extra Credit:
Eavesdropping an IP Telephony Call