VoIP

VoIP toll fraud on the rise

Sipera Systems, a unified communications security specialist, says it has seen a rise in toll fraud among enterprsies and service providers that it uncovers during the security architecture reviews and product deployments it has done in recent months.

Sipera said these cases of toll fraud of cost organization losses ranging from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The company identified the three most common vulnerabilities that lead to VoIP toll fraud.

• Telecom Connectivity Vulnerabilities: Enterprises that use Session Border Controllers (SBC) to secure VoIP and unified communications traffic risk a breach caused by configuration errors, SBC vulnerabilities or functional limitations.
• Application-level vulnerabilities: Many communications systems are vulnerable to fraud because they have weak passwords and authentication systems.
• End-point vulnerabilites: Enterprises haven’t instituted much security on users’ devices, especially as unified communications applications are extended to mobile devices, which are much easier to lose than a laptop.

The evolution of Facebook and social networking: Tips from a veteran

Social networking has come a long way from the days of Friendster and Ok! Cupid. I am no social networking expert — I barely use Twitter, I rarely check MySpace. But I have had the pleasure (and dismay) of watching Facebook grow from the very first days, when I joined as a college freshman, and I’ve learned a few things along the way.

In March of 2004, I was finishing up my freshman year at Boston University (yes, this will help you figure out how old — or not old — I am). Around this time, I began to hear buzz in my dorm about this new fun way to socialize, “The Facebook” (it went from thefacebook.com to facebook.com in 2005). At this time, if I recall correctly, Facebook was only available to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, BU, NYU and BC. And it was a completely different monster back then. There was a field along the top of your profile so you knew when you joined, which is how I still remember that I joined on March 30, 2004.

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A modest proposal

Hello world, this is Shamus McGillicuddy, news editor at SearchUnifiedCommunications.com. I will be a regular contributor to Unified Communications Nation. I hope this blog becomes a good place for you to visit when you want to keep up on what’s happening in the UC industry, or maybe when you just want to blow off some steam and have a laugh.

And with that in mind, blowing off steam is probably something enterprise communications managers need a lot of help with.  I’m thinking of fairly common headaches. For instance, you switch over your legacy voice system to a new IP telephony platform. And overnight your staff emails instructions on how to use the new phones to every user. Just to cover your bases, you make sure  to leave a printed set of those instructions on every desk. And yet, dozens of users still manage to delete the email and recycle the print outs without even reading them. Then they flood your team with complaints such as “On the old phones I had to dial 9 to get an outside line. Now I don’t. That’s so confusing.”

If you were Frank Costanza from “Seinfeld,” then you would probably bellow something like “Serenity now!” to keep your blood pressure down when faced with a snafu like that.  But I’d like to propose a new mantra, or catch phrase for the guys managing voice and video.

I’m thinking of a phrase that would simultaneously help you blow off steam and allow you to say what you’d really like to say to the users who keep misusing the communications technology you’ve carefully installed for them. That perfect phrase, that when spoken with the right amount of rage and contempt, just fills your heart with glee. And it was spoken so perfectly by a fine actor just 27 years ago.

“Let them eat static!”

Let me know what you think.