By Sharla Sikes

Security threats have dogged VoIP since its popular acceptance. Yesterday I talked about general security information; here’s a little more detail.

There are four types of threats to VoIP communications, according to a Mac News World article. Users are vulnerable to social threats such as misrepresentation, theft of services and unwanted contact; eavesdropped calls may reveal confidential information about individuals or businesses; hackers may tap into a VoIP network and cause denial of service attacks; and an “interception and modification attack,” which can prevent, terminate or reroute a call.

The possibilities for hacking are quite broad. Hackers can steal information sent via fax by rerouting a call, or reconstruct a call in order to gain information from the conversation. A scam familiar to most people today is similar to e-mail phishing, where victims are directed to a fake phone number for a legitimate business and asked to enter account or personal information.

“Because people are not used to questioning phone numbers, they trust the connection. The same old saying about security on the computer must apply to VoIP: trust or verify,” said Adam O’Donnell, director of emerging technologies for messaging security firm Cloudmark. “Anything over the Internet remains a place were vigilance is always needed.”

Hackers may be anyone from business competitors, employees, criminal gangs, tech hobbyists to just plain snoops.

Packet-sniffing programs are what allow hackers to tamper with VoIP communications, and are downloadable. Sometimes hardware may be required to tap into a physical wire, but the methods are unfortunately easy for someone with the right understanding of hardware, software and communications.

Monday: How to protect your VoIP network.

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