In many respects, hosted VoIP service can rightfully be considered safer than that of the on-premise variety, for the simple fact that proper vigilance of a VoIP system requires continuous monitoring which an outsourced vendor should ideally have the resources, equipment and personnel to do. The crux of this premise, however, lies in determining that such a service provider is adequately prepared (and willing to indicate so) to deal with the myriad threats which hosted VoIP is vulnerable to. Additionally, there are other security measures users of hosted VoIP can employ to assist in ensuring the safety of their networks.
Vendor Criteria
As the procuring and employment of security sufficient to effectively monitor VoIP service from external and internal threats can be expensive, it is frequently to the user’s advantage to simply pay for this service as part of its monthly fee for utilizing hosted VoIP. However, it then becomes prudent to determine that the vendor selected has the tools and the wherewithal to adequately protect the interests of its customers from security violations.
Hosted providers should have tools such as firewalls with added functionality specific to VoIP, as well as sophisticated intrusion-prevention systems that can be configured for VoIP threats. Additionally, Virtual private networks can allow voice traffic to be encrypted and transmitted over secure pathways. It may be useful to have vendors share an audit trail from an independent auditor to prove the security of their systems.
User Security
Such service provider methods of security can also be augmented by a number of methods that end-users can utilize. Anti-virus software can always be purchased and implemented by hosted VoIP users, while a particularly effective method of supplementing vendor security measures is to separate voice and data traffic into their own LANs. By utilizing virtual networks to transmit the information from the single physical network into respective ones for data and voice traffic, users can hone in on voice data more effectively to monitor specific activities that may pose threats.
Nature of the Threat
While the prudent application of security measures by both hosted VoIP vendors and their users greatly decreases the likelihood of security breaches, it should be understood that hosted VoIP faces many of the same sorts of malicious intrusions that on-premise VoIP does. Common threats include systemically distributed denial of service attacks (in which service is inaccessible), as well as hackers tapping calls, accessing other network components, and making free calls on the user’s service.
Bill Gates on Yahoo
Bill Gates was talking this week, specifically to a group of students at Stanford University in Palo Alta Ca. In an after speech interview with CNET News.com, Gates says what makes Yahoo so valuable to Microsoft is its engineering talent. Never mind market share, its products, or its advertiser base, Microsoft wants the engineers. But do the engineers want Microsoft?
It has been said that the two companies have significant cultural differences, Yahoo being very collaborative with a Linux based open source philosophy. Microsoft has never been accused of being a champion of open source technologies. The engineers that thrive in that kind of innovative environment are even now considering bolting.
Yahoo announced this week a new severance package for their employees, with salary and benefits for two years. In order to stem the potential bleeding, MS will offer a retention package, the details of which have not been made public. Speculation has it that they could offer a $500,000 bonus to the top engineers if they agree to stay for say, three years. Mid level employees could get some stock options, while the bottom tier could be encouraged to leave.
Thing is, software developers are generally not just motivated by money. The risk for Microsoft is that in their quest to take on Google, the very engineers they want to get end up going there, just to stay in an open source environment.
Gates says there is no haggling going on between the two companies over the price, and maintains that the offer is a fair one. Nobody doubts that Microsoft is serious about the acquisition, and will go hostile if need be. Yahoo is taking its time with a formal rejection of the offer, saying it is weighing its options.
Meanwhile, Steve Ballmer, among others on a conference call Thursday, says they will not be suing open source developers for products that connect to Microsoft software. In fact, they intend to publish the APIs, initially for Windows Server and Office 2007, in an effort to bolster interoperability.
Is Microsoft going open source? That might be a smooth move if they want to keep the brains at Yahoo.
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