If you’re a business using VoIP for your communications, you should be sensitized to the recent rise in cyberattacks and the damage they can have on your business.
VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) offers many benefits, especially when compared to other communication channels. For example, it is cheaper than traditional phone networks. It also comes with features like call recording, support for remote work, voicemail to email, and custom caller ID.
But because of this, VoIP has also become a target for cyberattacks and data breaches. Phone hacking, spyware, and malware have become common security threats plaguing VoIP users.
According to an IBM report, an overwhelming 83% of businesses and organizations experienced more than one data breach during 2022. Ransomware attacks also increased by 13% in the same year, representing a tremendous increase that eclipsed the past five years combined.
These attacks can have damaging consequences for businesses. For instance, Statista estimates that approximately 73% of businesses in the USA suffered a monetary loss between $10,000 and $999,999 due to cyber attacks.
Such numbers outline the importance of being proactive in the fight against cyberattacks. Doing this prevents such attacks from threatening your business and causing financial or reputational damage.
Encrypting devices and communication lines is one way to be proactive in cybersecurity, especially when using VoIP systems. Encryption plays a massive role in preventing security breaches and other cybersecurity threats affecting VoIP systems.
In this article, we’ll examine the role of encrypting VoIP communication channels in protecting sensitive and highly confidential data passed and stored through these lines.
But first, let’s learn more about the biggest risks and threats affecting VoIP communication channels.
Types of VoIP Security Risks and Threats
- Denial-of-Service (DoS/ DDoS) Attacks
A DoS attack involves flooding a network or service with overwhelming and malicious traffic, making it unusable, slow, and unavailable for legitimate users.
A DDoS attack (distributed denial of service) is an amplified version of a DoS attack. Attackers propagate the attack using a network of compromised devices, often called botnets. In some cases, DDoS attacks lead to a total shutdown of services and servers due to the overload.
These devices can be located anywhere in the world, making this service attack source harder to identify owing to the much larger traffic volume.
A DoS attack on VoIP disrupts communication and possibly business operations. It also creates a domino effect, as the disruption trickles down to receiving calls, collaborating on projects, and stalling workflows.
- Phishing and Vishing
A phishing attack is a cyber attack where cirminals pose as legitimate companies such as banks, social media networks, and other service providers like Gmail to trick account holders into giving their personal information, passwords, and other related information.
Vishing is the equivalent of phishing, but in this case, the tricks and fraud are done over voice calls, such as those made over VoIP services.
- Man-in-the-Middle Attacks
As the name suggests, a man-in-the-middle attack (MITM) occurs when a cybercriminal illegally inserts themselves into a VoIP communication channel between a sender and receiver, intercepting the communication data sent between the two parties.
These types of attacks are usually hard to detect. However, they are common among people who use public and unsecured Wi-Fi networks. That’s because such networks are easy to intercept and infect with spyware.
However, one way to effectively shield your VoIP communication channels against such attacks is to use a VPN.
VPNs encrypt your internet connection, securing the virtual tunnel between your device and servers. This shields your data from eavesdropping and interference as it travels through the internet. Although most are not free, VPNs offer a free trial period that allows you to first try them out before buying.
- Packet Sniffing
Businesses use VoIP to unify communications technology into a single system that consolidates audio, video, and text. This means that teams don’t have to use multiple communication channels to communicate effectively.
However, this also presents a challenge as it gives malicious parties the chance to snoop in, listen, steal, or possibly tamper with your VoIP data. This is what packet sniffing represents.
When you communicate online, you send that information through data packets. These packets are like tiny containers carrying coded pieces of your conversation.
Packet sniffing is a technique where hackers capture data packets sent through the network during VoIP calls. The person responsible for these attacks is a packet sniffer, who operates on the network layer, acting like a program that intercepts these data packets as they travel.
That program can be installed on a compromised device on the same network as the VoIP system.
If your VoIP calls lack encryption, the captured packets will contain the raw voice data of the conversation. This could potentially expose the entire conversation content to anyone with access to the packet sniffer.
That brings us to the role of encryption in protecting VoIP communication.
What is VoIP Encryption?
In simple terms, VoIP encryption is the process of securing voice communications transmitted through the internet. This process involves converting voice data into a code that can only be decrypted by the intended recipient’s VoIP devices.
VoIP uses the power of the internet to make calls instead of traditional phone lines. Encryption creates a secure tunnel through which your voice data can travel safely and securely without the increased risk of interception from malicious parties.
The most secure option for VoIP encryption is the popular end-to-end encryption.
Here, the data (voice message) you pass is completely scrambled from the moment you speak it until it reaches the recipient’s device, where it becomes decrypted.
You might have seen end-to-end encryption notifications when sending messages through popular apps like Telegram and WhatsApp. What that means is that your communication is protected and that no other parties, except the ones sharing and receiving the messages, can see or intercept your messages.
What Role Does Encryption Play in Securing VoIP Communication Channels?
We’ve seen that VoIP communication faces many threats ranging from eavesdropping to packet sniffing and vishing. Not only that, but a hacker can exploit a vulnerability in your network security and exploit it to disrupt business operations and ruin computer systems with critical infrastructure.
Fortunately, encryption provides a secure way to mitigate the risks of these attacks.
It plays a massive role in securing (VoIP) communication channels by ensuring the integrity, authentication, and confidentiality of the data transmitted between parties, as explained below.
Encryption Ensures Confidentiality, Data Integrity and Authentication
Confidentiality is vital for protecting communication that occurs through VoIP. Most of the time, businesses using VoIP need to maintain confidentiality because of the nature of the data.
Encryption is a primary and effective way to ensure that the data transferred through VoIP remains confidential. Protocols like Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP), which are encryption technologies, encrypt the voice data itself, making it unintelligible even if intercepted.
The role of encryption in VoIP is to also ensure the integrity and authentication of data transferred through this communication channel.
Remember, many attacks are targeted at VoIPs, such as man-in-the-middle attacks and eavesdropping. Cybercriminals are constantly crafting new ways to intercept and steal highly confidential information.
This could involve injecting misleading information, disrupting ongoing negotiations, or even impersonating one of the parties involved.
It Also Allows Mitigation of Common Threats
As mentioned before, VoIP systems are prone to a barrage of attacks including DoS attacks, data tampering, identity spoofing, phishing, malware and spyware.
The use of strong encryption algorithms, such as AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), is crucial for mitigating these threats. It prevents eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle attacks, replay attacks, and data tampering, among other common threats.
Also, VoIP providers may store call recordings for varied reasons. Encryption is a protection measure that ensures the safety of this stored data. This further mitigates the risk of unauthorized access.
The role of encryption is to prevent such attacks from coming to fruition and maintaining.
Compliance with Regulations
Many industries have regulations and standards (such as HIPAA for healthcare and GDPR for data protection in the EU) that require the use of encryption to protect sensitive information.
Encrypting VoIP communications helps organizations comply with these regulatory requirements.
But it’s important to note that regulations can be complex and might vary depending on the industry and location. It would be best to first consult with legal or compliance professionals to help you meet all relevant regulations.
In Conclusion
Voice over Internet Protocol, also called VoIP, is the technology that allows you to convert most devices to have phone call capabilities through an internet connection.
In VoIP systems, software applications are installed on computers. Such apps include Skype, Google Voice, Nextiva, and RingCentral. They allow you to make calls from a computer, smartphone, tablet, or related device. VoIP phones can also be USB phones, conference phones, video phones, or wireless IP Phones.
However, every bit of information transferred through the internet must be sent in codes, commonly called data packets. This applies to VoIP as well.
However, hackers and malicious parties constantly target these packets of data because they contain highly confidential information that could benefit them.
Security experts recommend using encryption.
Encryption offers a secure way to protect your VoIP communication lines. It plays a massive role in ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and authentication of data conveyed through VoIP, while keeping dangerous threats at bay.