An energy efficient authenticated key agreement protocol for SIP-based green VoIP networks

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is spreading across the market rapidly due to its characteristics such as low cost, flexibility implementation, and versatility of new applications etc. However, the voice packets transmitted over the Internet are not protected in most VoIP environments, and then the user’s information could be easily compromised by various malicious attacks. So an energy-efficient authenticated key agreement protocol for Session Initial Protocol (SIP) should be provided to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of data communications over VoIP networks. To simplify the authentication process, several protocols adopt a verification table to achieve mutual authentication, but the protocols require the SIP server to maintain a large verification table which not only increases energy consumption but also leads to some security issues. Although several attempts have been made to address the intractable problems, designing an energy-efficient authenticated key agreement protocol for SIP-based green VoIP networks is still a challenging task. In this study, we propose an efficient authentication protocol for SIP by using smartcards based on elliptic curve cryptography. With the proposed protocol, the SIP server needs not to store a password or verification table in its database, and so no energy is required for the maintenance of the verification table. Security analysis demonstrates that the proposed protocol can resist various attacks and provides efficient password updating. Furthermore, the experimental results show that the proposed protocol increases efficiency in comparison with other related protocols

Convergence: the next big step

Recently, web based multimedia services have gained popularity and have proven themselves to be viable means of communication. This has inspired the telecommunication service providers and network operators to reinvent themselves to try and provide value added IP centric services. There was need for a system which would allow new services to be introduced rapidly with reduced capital expense (CAPEX) and operational expense (OPEX) through increased efficiency in network utilization. Various organizations and standardization agencies have been working together to establish such a system. Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a result of these efforts. IMS is an application level system. It is being developed by 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) and 3GPP2 (3rd Generation Partnership Project 2) in collaboration with IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union – Telecommunication Standardization Sector), and ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) etc. Initially, the main aim of IMS was to bring together the internet and the cellular world, but it has extended to include traditional wire line telecommunication systems as well. It utilizes existing internet protocols such as SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting protocol), and COPS (Common Open Policy Service) etc, and modifies them to meet the stringent requirements of reliable, real time communication systems. The advantages of IMS include easy service quality management (QoS), mobility management, service control and integration. At present a lot of attention is being paid to providing bundled up services in the home environment. Service providers have been successful in providing traditional telephony, high speed internet and cable services in a single package. But there is very little integration among these services. IMS can provide a way to integrate them as well as extend the possibility of various other services to be added to allow increased automation in the home environment. This thesis extends the concept of IMS to provide convergence and facilitate internetworking of the various bundled services available in the home environment; this may include but is not limited to communications (wired and wireless), entertainment, security etc. In this thesis, I present a converged home environment which has a number of elements providing a variety of communication and entertainment services. The proposed network would allow effective interworking of these elements, based on IMS architecture. My aim is to depict the possible advantages of using IMS to provide convergence, automation and integration at the residential level

Developing Best Practices for Securing VoIP Communication for a non-profit Organization

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is the most widely used service around the world. The proficiency of it utilizing the web has increased awesome ubiquity in the current years. With this notoriety, there is expanding worry about the wellbeing of the system. The robbery or loss of the information being exchanged is great concern. For example, a basic problem for researchers who are developing safeguards for VoIP systems is the level of threats and other issues experienced by the non-profit organizations while implementing VoIP communication. This problem originated when non-profits received pressure from their donors not to implement VoIP communication because it will record important and valuable information of their bank account, including their bank balance, and consequently, exposing them to the public. Other dangers include safeguarding secrecy, respectability, and accessibility of the system, known as CIA. dangers. To battle these dangers, some security conventions and calculations have been produced. For example, the H.235 has been investigated, their calculations updated, and it is currently regarded as the most recent and effective system for security of the VoIP system. Another method for battling issues and concerns, and one that is the most proficient due to bigger budgets than non-profits, is VoIP being utilized in new structures and the IT work force. Fortunately, the expanding interest of VoIP has guaranteed and emphasized the requirement for more research to build up the effective security structures and countermeasures of CIA threats. This investigation examines the methods by which such security issues concerning VoIP can be set out to give an appropriate, secure and effective method for correspondence and data trade. In this postulation, the analyst will profoundly examine the relief of VoIP security issues

Robust and Efficient Authentication Scheme for Session Initiation Protocol

The session initiation protocol (SIP) is a powerful application-layer protocol which is used as a signaling one for establishing, modifying, and terminating sessions among participants. Authentication is becoming an increasingly crucial issue when a user asks to access SIP services. Hitherto, many authentication schemes have been proposed to enhance the security of SIP. In 2014, Arshad and Nikooghadam proposed an enhanced authentication and key agreement scheme for SIP and claimed that their scheme could withstand various attacks. However, in this paper, we show that Arshad and Nikooghadam’s authentication scheme is still susceptible to key-compromise impersonation and trace attacks and does not provide proper mutual authentication. To conquer the flaws, we propose a secure and efficient ECC-based authentication scheme for SIP. Through the informal and formal security analyses, we demonstrate that our scheme is resilient to possible known attacks including the attacks found in Arshad et al.’s scheme. In addition, the performance analysis shows that our scheme has similar or better efficiency in comparison with other existing ECC-based authentication schemes for SIP

Security of Streaming Media Communications with Logistic Map and Self-Adaptive Detection-Based Steganography

Voice over IP (VoIP) is finding its way into several applications, but its security concerns still remain. This paper shows how a new self-adaptive steganographic method can ensure the security of covert VoIP communications over the Internet. In this study an Active Voice Period Detection algorithm is devised for PCM codec to detect whether a VoIP packet carries active or inactive voice data, and the data embedding location in a VoIP stream is chosen randomly according to random sequences generated from a logistic chaotic map. The initial parameters of the chaotic map and the selection of where to embed the message are negotiated between the communicating parties. Steganography experiments on active and inactive voice periods were carried out using a VoIP communications system. Performance evaluation and security analysis indicates that the proposed VoIP steganographic scheme can withstand statistical detection, and achieve secure real-time covert communications with high speech quality and negligible signal distortion