A Generic Technique for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Traffic Detection

Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo voice etc. are all applications that enable the use of the Internet for voice conversations. They offer cost effectiveness and are easy to use, and due to these reasons many new VoIP applications are coming into existence. However, all forms of communications need to be monitored for security purposes to ensure their correct usage. With the development of more and more VoIP applications, monitoring and detection of these applications is becoming a more difficult task. Most detection techniques are based on standard protocol and IP address identification. Thus, application detection and monitoring techniques are developed after an application has been in use for some time, resulting in obvious security implications. This paper presents generic techniques for the detection of traffic generated by all VoIP protocols, both currently in existence and any future VoIP protocols that may be used. The method proposed is based on analysis carried out on different VoIP applications currently in existence.