Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

Secure Computing Corporation (NASDAQ: SCUR), a leading enterprise gateway security company, today announced that TeleCents Communications has deployed Secure Computing Sidewinder® to provide security for their traditional telecom as well as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. TeleCents required one device to protect their entire enterprise gateway, and Sidewinder’s powerful, scaleable solution included all the components necessary for the secure exchange of both traditional data and VoIP calls across open networks.

TeleCents Communications is a wholly-owned subsidiary of iTeknik Holdings, specializing in international and long distance cellular services and virtual calling cards. The company recently chose to implement the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) application to strengthen their VoIP offering. But with that implementation, potential security vulnerabilities increased dramatically, making an increased level of gateway security essential.

"In a very competitive telecom environment, we needed to make an impressive statement with regard to our VoIP and data security, so we selected the best product available. Sidewinder met or exceeded all of our security expectations," said Scott Pitcher, director of technical operations for TeleCents Communications. "Sidewinder’s industry-wide reputation brought us to Secure Computing, and the product’s proven VoIP and data security capabilities are helping us to meet our security goals."

VoIP risks are perhaps the best-kept secret on the Internet. Blinded by the promise of reduced costs and flashy features, VoIP deployments forge ahead despite millions in losses due to VoIP fraud and the growing trend of hackers using VoIP as a back door into enterprise networks. It is for these reasons that VoIP security is essential.

With the help of numerous sniffing, fuzzing and manipulation tools available on the Internet, VoIP and SIP technologies have inadvertently challenged traditional firewalls. TeleCents found that Sidewinder’s SIP application defense was the answer, combining intelligent filtering with VoIP signatures to protect SIP communications from attack, while allowing SIP traffic to pass through the firewall without requiring action by the user. The Sidewinder VoIP/SIP protection feature is standard with all Sidewinder appliances so only one device is needed to protect both data and VoIP calls for the entire gateway.

"As an Internet-facing application, VoIP is vulnerable to many of the same attack vectors that we see on the public Internet. Therefore VoIP is not immune to the new generation of security threats posed by Web 2.0 use," said Scott Montgomery, vice president of product management for Secure Computing. "VoIP inherits security concerns from IP networks, traditional phone networks and messaging applications. In addition, VoIP has its own vulnerabilities including call interception and modification, and call pattern tracking — all of which pose serious threats to a user. Sidewinder protects against each one of these vulnerabilities with reputation-based defenses."

Secure Computing ensures proactive security by applying the same research and technology for VoIP that’s used for blocking source IP addresses in Web and email transactions. Sidewinder blocks and allows gateway access based on the reputation of both IP addresses and domains from which each individual SIP communication originates. This reputation analysis is achieved via Secure Computing’s TrustedSource(TM) reputation technology.

TeleCents Communications relies upon Sidewinder’s capabilities completely and is highly satisfied with its superior level of security. "Our customers expect the best in voice communications and we believe that we’re ahead of the security curve by protecting not only our traditional data, but our SIP applications as well — as VoIP is often overlooked as a vulnerable platform. Since deploying the Sidewinder product, all of our security needs are met and we can sleep much better at night."

For assistance in deploying Sidewinder, TeleCents turned to one of Secure Computing’s reseller partners, TeleCents. Mark McClain, president of AmeriNet, oversaw the deployment of Sidewinder and will continue to manage the entire project personally. "We frequently recommend Sidewinder and other Secure Computing products to our clients," said McClain. "They really are in a class by themselves."
For more information, see http://www.securecomputing.com.