VoIP 'more secure than traditional phone systems'

Experts are reacting to concern over recently publicised VoIP security issues, insisting that the new technology is still safer than the traditional Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

"IP systems are more exposed, but you have more security that you can install," Ari Takanen, founder and CTO of Codenomicon said. PSTN, by comparison, can easily fall victim to such security flaws as caller ID spoofing against which little can be done.

At two recent security conferences - Black Hat and Defcon - researchers drew attention to the alleged weaknesses in VoIP technology by profiling hacking tools that were said to interfere with VoIP signalling protocols.

But Barrie Dempster, a senior security consultant for Next Generation Security Software, said such vulnerabilities were not VoIP-specific and that they had only gained notoriety because the technology is relatively new.

"The problem is not the specific vulnerabilities themselves. It's the maturity of the software. There hasn't been enough security review yet," he said, adding that most new technologies faced similar criticisms during their inception.

The industry group VoIP Security Alliance is now taking the course of actively distributing hacking tools among researchers and technology experts, encouraging them to expose fledgling security concerns so that designers can identify and fix any remaining issues.