|
For the past two years there have been many kinds of VoIP adaptations in the Malaysia’s SME market segment for its cost saving objective. Much education and work has been given by IP telephony hardware vendors like Cisco and 3 Com on the issues of VoIP and IP telephony solutions, but it is sad to know that the market in Malaysia is still not ready to understand the critical issues and consequences that might arise without the proper deployment on IP telephony and VoIP applications.
It is also a big surprise to know that some of the SME organizations ‘Top Management’ or CEOs encourage their company to use unsecured VoIP solutions like Skype, any form of instant messaging chat, and the public VoIP services, without knowing the potential VoIP threats and VoIP Security Issues in Malaysia.
Some CEOs might even compare these enterprise level VoIP telephony solutions with any normal VoIP device or VoIP adaptor (ATA) devices which depends on the public server (IP community) to route their VoIP calls, not knowing that they are actually comparing a bicycle with a car. The cost of these ATA devices will be in the range of RM 299 to RM 499.
The lack of security and confidentiality that will be a coming VoIP threats will definitely be hidden by these ATA service providers. Instead, they will always emphasis on how much cost can be save using these ATA devices, These vendors are also not assisting their customers to know the potentiality and the interoperability of VoIP applications.
The VoIP threats ranges from simple denial-of-service attacks, where a company or an individual is prevented from using the telephone, to sophisticated phone number hijackings which can redirect to malicious hackers, or hijacking the existing PSTN line through the ATA devices. Refer to http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2006/9/7/corpit/15333292&sec=corpit
Using the instant messaging chat like Skype might be a very attractive VoIP solution because it is ‘free’ and can be downloaded easily. It is always a favorite for organizations that look for things that comes ‘cheap’ and ‘free’. But little did they know that confidential information can be sent out easily through the sent icon and most commonly, employees will treat it as a mean of knowing friends and chatting instead of working.
It is a pity to know that no matter how hard the IP telephony vendors are educating the people on the VoIP matters but still their market are stuck only at the multi-national level, which is very much due to the global decision making. The SME market are still at the confusion stage on VoIP applications as most are still not aware of the next virus threats and the heaven for hackers, which is the VoIP market.
|
