Possible threats and preventive measures for IP PBX security

The evolution of internet as the telecommunication media and the shift of business strategies from offline to online have made it mandatory for almost every business firm to maintain a seamless communication channel to provide better and quicker customer response to customers. This does not mean that you have to do away with your old phone systems. IP PBX is an internet telephony system which has the capability to integrate with the traditional PSTN lines and provide a seamless communication channel for business conversations to take place.

Security of business communications today is less of a luxury and more of a mandatory element. Since business conversations today mainly depend upon internet, the business firms are a little suspicious about the security of the communications. The major attacks that affect PBX VoIP communications are categorized into three main categories:
Service Availability: Providing good Quality-of-Service is considered as the prime responsibility of any VoIP provider. Delivery of good Quality-of-Service amplifies the attack known as Denial of Service. This attack causes exhaustion of resources by sending loads of requests to the server. Since these repeated requests overload the channel, the unavailability of the required bandwidth hinders the Quality of Service.
Service Integrity: These threats focus on compromising the security of the network through fraud attacks such as false identity, identity thefts, etc. which is a major area of concern for users who have faced lost revenues and inaccurate billing. This type of attack is quite prominent since it is quite easy to crack the security at this level. A common example can demonstrate this type of attack. An individual can present a false identity through a caller ID, voicemail or any other means. This sort of misinterpretation is a common attack of phishing or Spam over Internet Telephony.
Eavesdropping: This type of attack affects the confidentiality and integrity of the data since the data packets can be gained access and thus making these business communications vulnerable to attacks. This includes gaining access to confidential data and then either using it as a replay attack or modifying the data in transit and delivering the modified data to the destination.
To keep the PBX system secure from all the above probable attacks, the following security measures have been taken:
Passwords: The Hosted PBX system introduces security in the phone system by setting passwords for the individual phones.
Firewalls: The firewalls should be set up and working to ensure security of the incoming traffic.
Unused Services: Care should be taken to disable the unused services on your IP PBX system in order to avoid their misuse by the network components.
Setting call limits: If due to some reason, repetitive calls are being made to overseas location, this can be done only for a specific number of times before the system asks for authorization and extra charge is made for it.
Apart from these basic practices, encryption of the data is also provided. The data packets after encryption are compressed in order to prevent the breach of security of the data transmitted. Many other secure algorithms are implemented in the IP PBX systems. Security can be clubbed with cost-effectiveness and freedom from IT hassles by opting for Hosted PBX in which most of the PBX hardware is set up and maintained off-premise by the service provider and the user just needs to plug in the communication media from anywhere and you are good to go. Thus, Hosted PBX VoIP serves as a secure approach to the transfer of sensitive business communications over the internet.