A Trust-based Strategy for Addressing Residual Attacks in the RELOAD Architecture

Telephony over IP has undergone a large-scale deployment thanks to the development of high-speed broadband access and the standardization of signaling protocols. A particular attention is currently given to P2PSIP networks which are exposed to many security threats. The RELOAD protocol defines a peer-to-peer signaling overlay designed to support these networks. It introduces a security framework based on certification mechanisms, but P2PSIP networks are still exposed to residual attacks, such as refusals of service. We propose in this work to address these residual attacks by integrating into the RELOAD architecture a dedicated trust model coupled with prevention countermeasures. We mathematically defines this trust-based strategy, and describe the considered prevention mechanisms implemented by safeguards and watchmen. We quantify the benefits and limits of our solution through an extensive set of experiments

Artemisa: an Open-Source Honeypot Back-end to Support Security in VoIP Domains

International audienceVoice over IP (VoIP) and the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) are establishing themselves as strong players in the field of multimedia communications over IP, leveraged by low cost services and easy management. Nevertheless, the security aspects are not yet fully mastered. In this paper we present an open-source implementation of a VoIP SIP-specific honeypot named Artemisa. The honeypot is designed to connect to a VoIP enterprise domain as a back-end user-agent in order to detect malicious activity at an early stage. Moreover, the honeypot can play a role in the real time adjustment of the security policies of the enterprise domain where it is deployed. We aim, by this contribution, to encourage the deployment of such honeypots at large scale and the collection of attack traces. We test the capacity of the honeypot to handle a series of known SIP attacks and present results from diverse scenarios

Risk Management in VoIP Infrastructures using Support Vector Machines

International audienceTelephony over IP is exposed to multiple security threats. Conventional protection mechanisms do not fit into the highly dynamic, open and large-scale settings of VoIP infrastructures, and may significantly impact on the performance of such a critical service. We propose in this paper a runtime risk management strategy based on anomaly detection techniques for continuously adapting the VoIP service exposure. This solution relies on support vector machines (SVM) and exploits dynamic security safeguards to reduce risks in a progressive manner. We describe how SVM parameters can be integrated into a runtime risk model, and show how this framework can be deployed into an Asterisk VoIP server. We evaluate the benefits and limits of our solution through a prototype and an extensive set of experimental results

A Comprehensive Survey of Voice over IP Security Research

We present a comprehensive survey of Voice over IP security academic research, using a set of 245 publications forming a closed cross-citation set. We classify these papers according to an extended version of the VoIP Security Alliance (VoIPSA) Threat Taxonomy. Our goal is to provide a roadmap for researchers seeking to understand existing capabilities and to identify gaps in addressing the numerous threats and vulnerabilities present in VoIP systems. We discuss the implications of our findings with respect to vulnerabilities reported in a variety of VoIP products. We identify two specific problem areas (denial of service, and service abuse) as requiring significant more attention from the research community. We also find that the overwhelming majority of the surveyed work takes a black box view of VoIP systems that avoids examining their internal structure and implementation. Such an approach may miss the mark in terms of addressing the main sources of vulnerabilities, i.e., implementation bugs and misconfigurations. Finally, we argue for further work on understanding cross-protocol and cross-mechanism vulnerabilities (emergent properties), which are the byproduct of a highly complex system-of-systems and an indication of the issues in future large-scale systems

From Understanding Telephone Scams to Implementing Authenticated Caller ID Transmission

abstract: The telephone network is used by almost every person in the modern world. With the rise of Internet access to the PSTN, the telephone network today is rife with telephone spam and scams. Spam calls are significant annoyances for telephone users, unlike email spam, spam calls demand immediate attention. They are not only significant annoyances but also result in significant financial losses in the economy. According to complaint data from the FTC, complaints on illegal calls have made record numbers in recent years. Americans lose billions to fraud due to malicious telephone communication, despite various efforts to subdue telephone spam, scam, and robocalls. In this dissertation, a study of what causes the users to fall victim to telephone scams is presented, and it demonstrates that impersonation is at the heart of the problem. Most solutions today primarily rely on gathering offending caller IDs, however, they do not work effectively when the caller ID has been spoofed. Due to a lack of authentication in the PSTN caller ID transmission scheme, fraudsters can manipulate the caller ID to impersonate a trusted entity and further a variety of scams. To provide a solution to this fundamental problem, a novel architecture and method to authenticate the transmission of the caller ID is proposed. The solution enables the possibility of a security indicator which can provide an early warning to help users stay vigilant against telephone impersonation scams, as well as provide a foundation for existing and future defenses to stop unwanted telephone communication based on the caller ID information.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Computer Science 201