Tag Archive for: Telephone

Your telephone system is your security weak spot

/in


While your telephony solution may not immediately spring to mind when you think about security risks, you could inadvertently be giving hackers the keys to the kingdom.

Modern voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephony solutions run on the same kinds of networks that your computing systems do. Unfortunately, says Euphoria Telecom chief technology officer Nic Laschinger, they are seldom secured as tightly as your computer systems and this makes them vulnerable.

“It’s important to realise that if someone can get to your telephony system, they can get to your IT systems. A lot of people define their security at the perimeter. For example, they deploy a firewall to keep people out. Once someone is inside, however, it’s relatively easy for them to get anywhere else, including to your operational IT systems and data,” Laschinger says. “People tend to ignore security on telephony systems as they don’t recognise them as full-fledged computer systems. This can be a costly omission.”

Operational technology, like telephony systems and the systems running factories, power plants and such, are increasingly being recognised as weak areas by attackers.

According to the Fortinet 2022 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report, 93% of organisations surveyed had an intrusion in the past year, and 61% of those intrusions impacted OT systems. Worse, says Fortinet, it took hours to restore service in 90% of those cases.

Weakness in VoIP systems and network or device compromises are increasing resulting in losses for businesses globally. The 2021 CFCA Global Telecommunications Fraud Loss Survey highlighted that IP PBX hacking resulted in US$1.82-billion worth of fraud that year. Spoofing, the most common telephony fraud method, cost businesses some $2.63-billion.

In addition to standard security measures like implementing IPSec (which secures data traffic across networks) and secure authentication, your cloud telephony provider should be implementing additional features and functions that help keep your telephone system secure. Below, Laschinger outlines some…

Source…

Try your hand at being an operator at the Roseville Telephone Museum

/in
An early magneto telephone.

Enlarge / An early 1910-era magneto telephone. (credit: Cyrus Farivar)

ROSEVILLE, Calif.—I don’t know about you, but I marvel that, with a tiny device in my pocket, I can instantly hear the voice of any of my loved ones, any time, essentially for free.

Of course, this wasn’t always the case. I’m old enough (nearly 37!) to remember when the phone would ring from overseas relatives and my parents would remind us to hurry to the phone: IT’S LONG DISTANCE! And yes, my parents used to pick up the phone and disrupt my dial-up Internet escapades.

But our contemporary landscape, replete with theoretically smart handputers, has an amazing past that extends well beyond my lifetime.

Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Biz & IT – Ars Technica

Exploiting Decades-Old Telephone Tech to Break Into Android Devices

/in

  1. Exploiting Decades-Old Telephone Tech to Break Into Android Devices  WIRED

  2. Android Phones From 11 Vendors Vulnerable To AT Commands Attacks  Cyber Security News (blog)

    3. Full coverage

android security news – read more

FCC grants VoIP service providers equal access to telephone numbers

/in

Some of you may not have known this was controversial, but the FCC this morning announced that going forward VoIP service providers such as Vonage will no longer be second-class citizens when it comes to the doling out of telephone numbers.

From an FCC press release:  

The Federal Communications Commission today modernized and streamlined its rules governing the distribution of phone numbers by leveling the playing field for interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers, which are increasingly popular with consumers.

Interconnected VoIP providers – defined as those capable of placing and receiving calls to and from the traditional phone network — currently must get numbers from third-party carriers.  Allowing these providers to go directly to numbering administrators for phone numbers will benefit consumers by reducing costs and promoting additional competition from these innovative VoIP providers, the FCC found.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network World Paul McNamara