03 October 2006

SAN DIEGO -- Some of the slickest new technologies online -- VoIP and AJAX -- are dangerously insecure, and likely to only get worse as they become more prevalent, according to security researchers presenting their findings at the ToorCon security conference here.

Voice over internet protocol is going mainstream, available to consumers and increasingly replacing the private phone systems in businesses of all sizes. Like the traditional phone, a VoIP call is broken into two parts, or channels. The first is signaling, which negotiates things like when to start and stop a call, what to do if another call comes in, and what to do if something about the call changes. The second part is media, the bit where we talk. In most VoIP systems neither of these channels is actually encrypted.