IMS security and what we should learn from the Internet

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) was developed by a common initiative of the standardization bodies 3GPP and ETSI TISPAN with the aim to provide a platform for fixed and mobile network operators that supports future communication services. In this article we give an overview about the implications that security threats already known from the Internet have on IMS. We analyze the security requirements of an IMS based network architecture and describe possible security solutions. Finally, we argue that for a secure IMS environment extensive traffic monitoring is required in order to provide IMS-based services in a secure manner.