Security analysis and solutions for deploying IP telephony in the critical infrastructure

Abstract

Voice over IP (VoIP) is being adopted to replace the traditional circuit switched infrastructure for telephony services. This trend has an enormous impact on the critical infrastructure sectors which will progressively become more dependent in part or as a whole on VoIP services. Phone communications and its security is a relevant concern for most critical infrastructure sector organizations today. With passage of time this concern will morph into a new set of challenges and opportunities brought forward by the deployment of VoIP in these organizations. This study attempts to outline the potential security issues faced by the critical infrastructure sectors as they transform their traditional phone systems into VoIP systems. Security analysis is provided to understand the impact of VoIP security challenges in the new convergent network paradigm. Some recommendations are made on how to address many issues of VoIP security along the process of adopting IP telephony into critical infrastructure.