The New Era of SIP Trunking Network

The telecommunication industry is transitioning rapidly from the traditional PSTN service to the latest advanced technology. It has become significant for businesses to understand the new communication infrastructure. This new era of technology is the highly advanced SIP trunking. Though it’s not new in the market, it has been adopted a few years ago. Recent studies have revealed that the industry is slowly moving to utilise of this new technology and in the near future, it will completely replace the traditional phone services. Now we are going to understand this transition in a meaningful way.

Low Calling Rates

With the evolving industry, you can find a lot of SIP trunking services, however, you have to pick the SIP trunking network of those service providers who have the facilities to offer you the unlimited calling along with better customer services immediately. With the newly created phone infrastructure, your costly hardware problems can also be minimised in a more meaningful way. Also, you can eliminate the IP level PBX phone system with SIP trunk service. You do not need to make any additional efforts on the conversation part hence you will be having the services of good quality.

Lower Monthly Rates and Low Rental with This SIP

By employing the newly created highly advanced technology, your total monthly charges of using the traditional PSTN network services can be minimised and office costs can be dropped. Furthermore, with SIP trunking services the cost of DID’s become lower as well.

How Can You Ensure That Your SIP Trunking Service is Secure?

For as long as the phone system has existed, so has scams to exploit the weaknesses of these systems. Whilst the technology might have changed, the VoIP phone technology is no different. 

There are misuses of this technology as well, these have become easier to pull off. Whether they are rerouting incoming calls, stealing minutes or performing scam. Some of the scammers have turned telephone services exploitation into a profitable business.

Since SIP trunks connect voice and video phone calls over the internet, they have also become more vulnerable to scammers. Maintaining security for such systems is very important. Without security for the SIP trunks, there is a risk of a security breach.

Some of the Common Areas of Weakness

When you employ SIP trunks you have to be aware of the weaknesses in your phone system. In order to help you keep your phones and data from attacks, you must look out for these known security attacks.

• Best Practices for SIP Trunks Security
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Now that you have become aware of the most common kinds of SIP and VoIP vulnerabilities, it is time to employ a few main security tactics in order to keep all your data secure. There is no guarantee that these will keep you 100% secure, however, they will go a long way in decreasing network and system vulnerabilities.

• Awareness Is Your Best Defence
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Whilst there have been stories in the recent years that SIP trunking is particularly open to vulnerability, your SIP trunk and VoIP security is just as strong as its weakest link. Employing a few of the following practices can prevent you and your organisation from becoming another story.

• Deny by Default
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Since VoIP phone numbers can be registered anywhere in the world, usually a benefit to your business, also it can sometimes cause security issues. You can make it a default to initially denying everyone access to your PBX system. Then, you just need to grant access to authorised users you personally know about. 

• Use Stronger Passwords
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It is human nature to take shortcuts. Therefore, a lot of people have poor passwords. You must make it a common exercise, whether for your VoIP phone system or for other systems, that all users have a strong password.

You need to change all the default passwords for your PBX system instantly and employ a combination of phone numbers, symbols, capitals and letters. Do not over complicate it. At times, replacing numbers with letters is enough. For instance, if your name is John, something like ‘J00hh9’ is perfect. You will also need to establish a rule where every user has to regularly update their passwords.

• Disable all Unused Services
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If you have any unused phone services from your VoIP Service Provider like voicemail then you need to ask the provider to disable those unused features. Not using those services, it means no one in your organisation is watching it. Further, if nobody is looking, no one will notice if it is been breached by any attackers. The securest method to secure your phone system is to close all the doors which could possibly be exploited.

Other issues which you might need to consider include regular firmware and software updates, limited long-distance calls, management interfaces that help prevent access and authentication and encryption methods such as WPA2 or VPN.

This list by no means includes all the vulnerabilities or solutions. However, it should be enough for you to get started. If you want to then you can employ SIP trunking by choosing the right from SIP trunk providers in the UK.