Ovum Warns of Risk

BOSTON -- VoIP service providers and enterprises should take steps to minimise security risks before the technology is more widely deployed, advises Ovum, the analyst and consulting company.

Most organisations are either new to IP telephony or are still considering adopting it. Their primary concern currently is voice quality and functionality, and few have considered security issues. When they have, they are usually only preoccupied with disclosing sensitive information in phone calls or with unwanted marketing calls - but these are their only concerns.

Yet the risks are very real. "We do not know which threats will become critical in VoIP or how long the process will take, but it would be foolish to ignore them," says Graham Titterington, a principal analyst and security expert with Ovum.

Two areas are mainly at risk: the integrity of the IP telephony systems and the data systems to which they are connected. Internet attacks on data networks can attack the VoIP network. With VoIP, telephony and data systems share the same network.

Ovum Ltd.