Thursday, December 1, 2005

VoIP Security - A Canadian Strength

Canada may not be known for its military might - it's not the way up here. We have the world's longest unprotected border with the US, and it will probably stay that way until the Americans run out of oil and water, and then.... all bets are off.

VoIP security is another matter. This is still largely a market waiting to happen, but there's no doubt that the threats posed by things like SPIT, Internet fraud and DOS attacks are real. Many vendors are working on various flavors of VoIP, and Canada has its share of players on the leading edge.

Mark Evans ran a nice piece the other day in the National Post on this topic, and I just got a link to it. He profiles two up and coming companies in this space - Ottawa-based VoIPShield, and Toronto-based Borderware Technologies.

I think VoIP security will take on growing importance as enterprises ramp up their adoption of IP, and as they learn how voice behaves differently than data on data networks. And of course, a large scale VoIP security calamity can come anywhere, anytime, which could kick-start this market in a hurry. I plan to explore VoIP security in future VON Radio podcasts, so look to hear more from these companies here soon.

1 comment:

Jon Arnold said...

Posted by: Alan Gahtan

From what I can tell, both of the mentioned cmpanies have proudcts that help protect the network when VOIP is being used (in other words, a voip-friendly firewall) but they don't actually protect the conversation. We really need interoperable standards supported by the major ITSP providers in order to properly secure this new technology.

http://www.gahtan.com/techlawblog/2005/12/06/voip-roadblocks/