Information Leakage in Ubiquitous Voice-over-IP Communications

Abstract

Abstract. In VoIP, proxies are used by end-devices to perform a number of tasks including call setup and routing. Setup and routing is achieved through the exchange of call control messages which are forwarded among all involved proxies as well as the communicating end-devices. This paper will explore the information exchanged in Voice-over-IP (VoIP) call control messages and any possible implications this has on personal privacy. We assess the explicit and implicit deductions that can be made from handling messages in transit and evaluate these with a conceptual anonymity model. We aim to show that profiling is a threat in current VoIP implementations and that this threat becomes increasingly relevant with the growing adoption of VoIP. We consider these facts in light of possible future scenarios whereby VoIP has the potential to become a truly ubiquitous technology.

Towards Standardized Prevention of Unsolicited Communications and Phishing Attacks

“…Since such unsolicited calls can be made using bots or other malicious software at any time (for instance at the midnight) with extremely low costs, many network operators are seeking a solution for protecting unsolicited communication in their VoIP networks. • Private information leakage [22]: A victim may receive a spoofed call with a call ID that is known by the victim to be the one from his bank and the victim may provide private information or passwords about his bank account. Conversations and messages can easily be intercepted by attackers, e.g.…”