New Software Eavesdrops On Internet Phone Calls

November 25, 2007 11:17 a.m. EST

London, England (AHN) - A new software has demonstrated the vulnerability of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone calls that are easy prey for criminals looking to steal confidential data. The "proof-of-concept" software program, called SIPtap, shows how easy it would be for criminals to eavesdrop on the Internet-based phone calls, says its developer, Peter Cox.

"We are in the early days of VoIP, but there is a knowledge gap," said Cox, pointing out VoIP's security weaknesses. "Companies using VoIP internally think they are protected... The threat is that an attacker engineers a Trojan and has it sit there passively (on a network), recording calls from anywhere on the Internet."

Running from August until Nov. 21, SIPtap had no problems in extracting enough information on the test network to prove that call recording of any and every VoIP call at a hypothetical company was now a trivial exercise, TechWorld reported.

According to Cox, the same vigor should be used when building a VoIP network as one would when building a website.