PBX And VOIP Security, Vulnerabilities

Traditional telephone systems (PSTN/PBX) are a mature technology and present a high level of quality of service, security and reliability, and enjoy complete separation from internet hostilities so typically not available to attackers. PBX Security The growth of VoIP technology complicates the task of PBX security. Phone lines can be the point of entry for a host of new threats to the voice and data networks Is Your IP PBX Secure? VoIP PBX systems provides an IP-based alternative to traditional circuit-switched phone systems, a VoIP PBX brings with it risks. Threats to VoIP networks Eavesdropping, Jamming, Active modification, Toll stealing An attacker can: Make toll calls at your expense Listen to your voicemail Maliciously reprogram your system On-sell the use of your system to others

risks Spam over Internet Telephony (SPIT): telemarketing messages Spoofing: attacker pretends to be a trusted VoIP caller, such as your bank Identity theft: gathering bits of information collected from your conversations Eavesdropping
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Vishing attacks: to gain access to your personal and financial information Data sniffing: to modify, store and play back your conversations Toll fraud: charge long distance calls to your bill be "port agile": attacker seek out open ports to make the connection

VoIP Vulnerabilities 1. Insufficient verification of data 2. Low resources 3. Low bandwidth 4. File/resource manipulation flaws: 5. Password 6. Permissions and privileges 7. Crypto and randomness 8. Authentication and certificate errors 9. Error handling:
register message with an invalid telephone number result in a 404 error code valid telephone number result in a 401 error This will let the attacker narrow down the attack on valid accounts

10. Lacking fallback system 11. Physical connection quality and packet collision FIREWALL OPTIONS : Session Initiation Protocol filtering. Exploiting VoIP vulnerabilities to steal confidential data firewall forward SIP traffic to port 5060 to the internal IP PBX Using this forwarding rule fuzzed message is sent to the vulnerable soft phone.

 IP-PBX treats this fuzzed message as a new call and forwards the call to the vulnerable soft phone. The fuzzed message result in the victim's laptop connecting back to the attacker's firewall allow outgoing connections to port 80, thinking that it is standard web traffic. attacker can also Copy data, Delete data, Deny access to the data, Shutdown or reboot the laptop

Conclusion: VoIP risks continue to grow as more and more people rely on this service to make phone calls. Always be aware of the information you're sharing and that others may be listening in.