The Current State of VoIP Security

You need not look far to find a slew of articles, white papers, and research reports describing the vulnerability of voice over IP systems. VoIP systems are vulnerable, but currently, the threat of actual attack to these systems is moderate. New vulnerabilities are being reported at an accelerating rate, such as the one that recently affected Cisco’s Call Manager (http://www.techweb.com/wire/ security/165702369), but reports of actual exploit software or real attacks are uncommon. There are a number of reasons for the current calm, but conditions will change as VoIP becomes more common and is integrated with other applications and public networks.