VoIP sales up; Cisco admits security hole; Sipera releases top five vulnerabilities list

Provider VoIP equipment sales up 5% last quarter

A recent study found VoIP equipment sales to carriers staying strong, with gains of 5% in the third quarter and the market growing 15% year over year.

Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for Infonetics Research, stated in a release that the quarter was marked by strong gains in softswitch, session border controller (SBC), and media server sales. The study also predicted that the number of worldwide residential and small office/home office VoIP subscribers would grow to nearly 172 million by 2010, led by the Asia Pacific region.

Cisco admits security hole in VoIP solution

Following the disclosure of Vonage security holes, Cisco has now confirmed vulnerabilities in its own platform.

A Wired blog post in October originally reported the vulnerability, which security researchers said allowed them to eavesdrop on other calls and access the financial and corporate network of the attacked hotel. Cisco's advisory also listed several workarounds to mitigate the security risk.

Sipera Systems releases top-five list of VoIP vulnerabilities

In more security news, Sipera Systems' VIPER Lab listed its top five VoIP vulnerabilities of 2007, which ranged from toll fraud to remote eavesdropping.

"By highlighting the top five vulnerabilities, issuing VIPER Lab Threat Advisories, and providing the Sipera IPCS product line, Sipera is helping enterprises and service providers secure their VoIP systems," said a statement by Krishna Kurapati, Sipera founder and CTO.

The other three security holes highlighted were the Skype worm, which utilised that software's chat function; Vishing, in which malicious users spoof their phone number to gain sensitive information; and VoIP hopping, which can give hackers access to VLANs by making a PC mimic a VoIP phone.