With all the hype surrounding the growing use of Internet telephony, discussion about how Web-based voice traffic will be protected is just starting to gain momentum. Among the issues being touted by firms hoping to take advantage of the security threat are: denial of service attacks, eavesdropping, call redirection and spam or malicious calling.
All of these things should be a concern for residential and corporate customers, who are slowly gravitationg to VOIP. Last week, the security issue was thrust into the spotlight with the creation of the VoIP Security Alliance, which is being led by 3Com's TippingPoint unit.
From a business perspective, it's interesting to see the growing number of security firms such as Symantec, TippingPoint and Toronto-based BorderWare Technologies Inc., which develops e-mail, voice and firewall products.
Borderware aims to raise its profile this week at Demo@15 where it will showcase "the industry's first SIP-based technology designed to protect Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communications from hackers, spoofers and malicious threats". Earlier this month, BorderWare signed a deal with 3Com, which will use BorderWare's software in a new e-mail protection appliance called MXtreme.