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Modems and network security The massive increase in managed services has seen authorised modems installed for remote access and maintenance. Also, unauthorized modems are often installed by employees to dial their private ISP accounts and obtain unmonitored Internet access. Modem connections create unsecured phone line access points into


corporate data networks, opening the door for hackers, malware, viruses, and other threats to enter. It only takes one unmonitored modem connection to completely undermine all of an organisation’s network security investments. Traditional data firewalls and PBX systems cannot see or stop modem calls and access points.


Many industry groups and regulatory agencies recommend aggressive measures to address modem vulnerabilities. Some organisations mitigate some of the modem threat through war-dialing projects, conducted internally or through a third party at significant cost. War-dialing expenses typically include long distance calling charges, consultant or staff labour costs, and software license fees. Sadly, for its substantial cost, war- dialing is a severely limited means of identifying rogue modems in the enterprise and provides no ability to alert/block/prevent modem threats in real-time.


Service abuse and financial losses Just like the Internet scenario, employees and other internal voice network users can misuse and abuse corporate phone service in a number of ways, at large expense.


Savings generated by monitoring and controlling proper use of the private voice network can be substantial and represent a large ROI opportunity for the business. PBX/IP-PBX systems and standard call accounting packages do not identify much of this type of abuse because the solution must be able to identify call type (voice, fax, modem, video, etc) of the calls in order to see the abuse. But more importantly, these tools lack the real-time distributed policy enforcement capabilities needed to alert and prevent abusive or unwanted call traffic in real-time, before financial losses accumulate.


Compliance & Data Leakage


Industry regulations that recommend and enforce the protection of customer information contained on corporate data networks have substantial implications for voice network security measures. At a basic level, most dictate that corporate networking resources must be adequately secured from unauthorised access and information theft. Examples of regulation in this area include the EU data protection directive, EU Privacy and Electronic Communication Directive and the PCI DSS regulations on credit card data.


Case study


Unsurprisingly, with the rate of such attacks and their associated costs increasing, specific solutions are emerging in the market. When a vendor with the reach and influence of Cisco take notice, you can bet that it signals a real market opportunity that the rest of us should take seriously.


Cisco is a global market leader in voice gateways


based on its market share in IP telephony, and has taken significant steps to provide built-in security against these threats by encouraging established vendors in this space to integrate their solutions with the Cisco Integrated Services Router (ISR) family that provides the majority of PSTN gateway connections in their market.


One such vendor is Securelogix, a big player in enterprise voice/UC threats protection and intelligence. Securelogix solutions enable customers to save money by securing and optimising SIP/VoIP trunking and legacy voice environments, allowing secure and confident migration to Unified Communications. The company’s ETM System software has been ported to the Cisco ISR router, with an initial focus on the burgeoning SIP trunking market, and is being distributed in the UK and Europe by Comstor.


Channel analysis


All the available indicators suggest that voice security will become an increasingly important issue for both large and small businesses since the perpetrators of toll fraud and TDOS in particular do not discriminate in terms of their targets, and the sophistication and automation with which attacks can be made are accelerating daily.


The opportunity is current and growing, and what makes it even more potentially interesting is the degree to which managed services can be used to address it. The concept of providing an assured, secure managed voice service should be close to the top of any telecoms solution provider’s wish list for 2011.


See page 46


To advertise in contact The Sales Team on 01895 454411


www.comms-dealer.com COMMS DEALER JANUARY 2011 45


NETWORK SECURITY


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