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Body (4 pages)
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Literature Review
Conclusion
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2) What are the advantages and disadvantages of Voice over Internet (VoIP)

How does it work?
What equipment and software do you need?
Does the FCC regulate VoIP? If so, in what aspect?
Identify a common practice to ensure communications are secure.
(300 words APA style citations and refrences)

Abstract
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is an advanced telecommunication technology which transfers the voice/video over

high speed network that provides advantages of flexibility, reliability and cost efficient advanced telecommunication
features. Still the issues related to security are averting many organizations to accept VoIP cloud environment due to
security threats, holes or vulnerabilities. So, the novel secured framework is absolutely necessary to prevent all kind of
VoIP security issues. This paper points out the existing VoIP cloud architecture and various security attacks and issues
in the existing framework. It also presents the defense mechanisms to prevent the attacks and proposes a new security
framework called Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) using video watermarking and extraction technique and Liveness
Voice Detection (LVD) technique with biometric features such as face and voice. IPSs updated with new LVD features
protect the VoIP services not only from attacks but also from misuses.

A Comprehensive Survey of Security Issues and
Defense Framework for VoIP Clou

Ashutosh Satapathy* and L. M. Jenila Livingsto

School of Computing Science and Engineering, VIT University, Chennai – 600127, Tamil Nadu, India;
ashutosh.satapathy2013@vit.ac.in, jenila.lm@vit.ac.in

Keywords: Defense Mechanisms, Liveness Voice Detection, VoIP Cloud, Voice over Internet Protocol, VoIP Security Issues

1. Introduction
The rapid progress of VoIP over traditional services is
led to a situation that is common to many innovations
and new technologies such as VoIP cloud and peer to
peer services like Skype, Google Hangout etc. VoIP is the
technology that supports sending voice (and video) over
an Internet protocol-based network1,2. This is completely
different than the public circuit-switched telephone net-
work. Circuit switching network allocates resources to
each individual call and path is permanent throughout
the call from start to end. Traditional telephony services
are provided by the protocols/components such as SS7, T
carriers, Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), the Public
Switch Telephone Network (PSTN), dial up, local loops
and anything under International Telecommunication
Union. IP networks are based on packet switching and
each packet follows different path, has its own header and
is forwarded separately by routers. VoIP network can be
constructed in various ways by using both proprietary
protocols and protocols based on open standards.

1.1 VoIP Layer Architecture
VoIP communication system typically consist of a front
end platform (soft-phone, PBX, gateway, call manager),
back end platform (server, CPU, storage, memory, net-
work) and intermediate platforms such as VoIP protocols,
database, authentication server, web server, operating sys-
tems etc. It is mainly divided into five layers as shown in
Figure1.

1.2 VoIP Cloud Architecture
VoIP cloud is the framework for delivering telephony
services in which resources are retrieved from the
cloud data center through web applications and soft-
ware, instead of a direct link to server3. Information and
applications are stored on cloud servers in a distributed
fashion. Apart from cloud computing characteristics
such as on demand service, resource pooling, opti-
mize resource allocation, pay as you go, elasticity and
scalability4,5, VoIP cloud contains mainly six components
as shown in Figure 2.

*Author for correspondence

Indian Journal of Science and Technology, Vol 9(6), DOI: 10.17485/ijst/2016/v9i6/81980, February 2016
ISSN (Print) : 0974-6846

ISSN (Online) : 0974-5645

A Comprehensive Survey of Security Issues and Defense Framework for VoIP Cloud

Indian Journal of Science and Technology2 Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.or

1.2.2 DHCP Server
It is used for dynamically distributing network configu-
ration parameters such as Internet Protocol (IP) address,
address of TFTP server etc.

1.2.3 Application Server
These servers are designed to install, host and operate
applications and provide services to end users, IT
industries and organizations.

1.2.4 Time Server
The main principle of time server is to maintain syn-
chronization over the network. The actual time from
server clock is distributed to its clients using a computer
network.

1.2.5 TFTP Server
It helps to update the network configuration used by the
phones, routers, firewalls and perhaps provide a setting
file that might contain operational parameters for VoIP
network. e.g., software updates, codec used in a particular
region.

1.2.6 Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)
It monitors networks and systems behavior for malicious
instances. The major roles of intrusion prevention sys-
tems are to find out suspicious instances and their log
information, try to block/stop them and report to con-
cern admin.

2. Literature Review
VoIP technology was started in February 1995 by
Vocaltec, Inc. in Israel. It transfers the voice over high
speed network, cheaper comparing to PSTN and reach-
able to everywhere through internet by loon developed by
Google with 4G LTE speed6.

2.1 VoIP Security Issues
VoIP transfers the voice over the data network through
different network elements such as switches and rout-
ers. Connecting PSTN to internet i.e. VoIP as a carrier
for voice/video traffic, the security problems are not only
common in circuit switch network (PSTN, POTS) such
as eavesdropping (tapping) and toll fraud attack but also

42. Liao HJ, Lin CHR, Lin YC, Tung KY. Intrusion detection system: A comprehensive review.
Journal of Network and Computer Applications. 2013; 36(1):16–24.

43. Audiopedia. Honeypot (computing). Available from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fXAw33jOBk. [Cited 2014 Dec].

44. Goel R, Sardana A, Joshi RC. Wireless honeypot: framework, architectures and tools.
International Journal of Network Security. 2013; 15(5):373–83.

45. Li Z, Grochulla M, Thormahlen T. Multiple active speaker localization based on audio-
visual fusion in two stages. Proceedings IEEE International Conference on Multisensor
Fusion Integration Intelligence Systems (MFI); Hamburg: Germany; 2012. p. 262–68.

46. Zhu ZY, He QH, Feng XH, Xiongli Y, Wang ZF. Liveness detection using time drift
between lip movement and voice. Proceedings IEEE International Conference on Machine
Learning Cybernetics (ICMLC); Tianjin: China; 2013. p. 973–78.

47. Chetty G. Biometric liveness detection based on cross modal fusion. IEEE 12th International
Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION). Seattle: WA; 2009. p. 2255–62.

Figure 1. VoIP layer architecture.

Figure 2. VoIP cloud architecture.

Figure 3. Proposed VoIP cloud architecture.

Figure 4. Video watermarking scheme for signaling message.

Figure 2. VoIP cloud architecture.

1.2.1 Call Server
Phones are registered with this component. It handles
security and admission control while connecting the
phones. The Voice data of a call carried by the transport
protocol may or may not flow through the call server.

Ashutosh Satapathy and L. M. Jenila Livingston

Indian Journal of Science and Technology 3Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

problems related to IP network. Security issues in VoIP
are broadly classified into three categories.

2.1.1 Real Time Issues
From last decade onwards, VoIP is used for several illegal
activities such as hacking, terrorism, match fixing etc.
Recently in October 2014, phone Hackers had broken
into the phone network of the company, Foreman Seeley
Fountain Architecture and routed $166, 000 worth of
calls from the firm to premium rate telephone numbers
in Gambia, Somalia and Maldives. It would have taken
34 years for the firm to run of those charges legitimately,
based on its typical phone bill.

2.1.2 Network Related Issues
Attacks related to destroy, block, expose, alter, disable,
steal or gain unauthorized access to information in VoIP
network (e.g. threats include social, denial of service, ser-
vice abuse, physical access, interruption of service etc.) are
listed in Table 1 followed by different types of attacks7,8.

2.1.3 Voice Related Issues
As VoIP system carries voice traffic, so victim’s voice can
be mimicked by an attacker/intruder. A talking and sing-
ing robot that mimics human vocalization, developed
by M. Kitani, Kagawa University is vulnerable to VoIP
communication9.

2.2 VoIP Attac

This section deals with different types of VoIP attacks.

2.2.1 Physical Attacks
The attacker performs this attack by stealing, breaking
network equipment or direct control over equipment by
getting unauthorized access to prohibited area for seeking
of information. Some of the physical attacks are dumpster
diving, shoulder surfing, hardware key logger and overt
access etc. It can be prevented by keeping the documents
and records safely inside locker and electronic equipment
must be password protected. At last, outer layer security
can be provided by deploying security guards at enter and
exit points.

2.2.2 MAC Spoofing
The technique of masking a MAC address upon actual
MAC address through software emulation is known as

MAC spoofing. Here the hacker’s system is taken over
MAC address of one of the node which is already config-
ured and permitted as VoIP end device by disconnecting
or turning off it from rest of the network. It can be pre-
vented by number of ways10. When ARP packet arrives,
direct extraction of MAC address from LAN card and
from OS registry; Compare the MAC address of LAN
card with OS. If it doesn’t match, then delete the entry
from OS registry. Lock down the system by registering its
MAC address with a DHCP IP address. At last secure the
communication channel by encrypting it.

2.2.3 ARP Spoofing
Hacker spreads forgery Address Resolution Protocol
(ARP) packets inside VoIP network by modifying ARP
buffer. Here, attacker binds own system MAC address
with IP address of genuine server which causes the traffic
imply for server is diverted to attacker. It advances hacker

Table 1. VoIP network threats classification

Threat Type Description
Social threats These threats point straight against

individuals such as misconfigurations,
security holes or defective protocol
implementation in VoIP system. (e.g.,
Phishing, Theft of identity or Service,
Social engineering, Spam etc.)

Eavesdropping,
interception

and
modification

threats

These threats include illegal/ Un-
authorization access and modification
of signaling and transport message.
(e.g., Call rerouting, interception of RTP
sessions etc.)

Denial of
service threats

DoS threats repudiate individual access to
VoIP services. DDOS attacks strike all of
user’s or business transmission potentials.
(e.g., SYN/UDP floods, ICMP floods, etc.)

Service abuse
threats

These threats cause inappropriate utilization
of VoIP services when those facilities are
provided for business purposes. (e.g., toll
fraud and billing avoidance etc.)

Physical access
threats

These threats are illegal physical access to
VoIP devices or physical layer of the VoIP
network. (e.g., Hardware key logger, theft
of media, retrieval of discarded stuffs etc.)

Interruption of
services threats

These threats cause VoIP services/
facilities to unviable and unavailable.
(e.g., power loss due to bad climate,
resource consumption due to over
purchase/ extra subscription, issues that
degenerate call quality etc.)

A Comprehensive Survey of Security Issues and Defense Framework for VoIP Cloud

Indian Journal of Science and Technology4 Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

not only listen to VoIP calls but also reply and terminate
the VoIP calls intended for other. ARP poisoning followed
by denial service threats or eavesdropping, interception or
modification threats which cause severe damages to vic-
tim. So, Enhanced ARP can be implemented to prevent
ARP spoofing11.

2.2.4 IP Spoofing
Attacker gets into the VoIP network by tricking the IP
address of any authorized machine which helps him to
spread malicious message inside the network. IP spoofing
helps attacker to launch further attacks such as DoS attack,
theft of services, toll fraud etc. by impersonating autho-
rized host inside VoIP network. Basically IP spoofing can
be prevented with maximum probabilities by configuring
broader gateway router. First, router disallows incom-
ing packets for destination address coming from source
address within one network. Second, router disallows to
send packets from local network to another; those don’t
have source addresses within that local address range.
Y. Ma developed an effective trace route based method
for counter measure against IP spoofing and it is worked
with trusted adjacent nodes information i.e. acceptance of
packets for a node is completely depends upon trace route
result from its adjacent nodes12.

2.2.5 ICMP Flood
Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is one of the
network layer protocols that carry error and query mes-
sages sent by either intermediate nodes or end node.
Attacker tries to overflow the receiver cache by flood the
respective node with ICMP packets. It forces the node to
drop successive ICMP packets until free space available
at node’s cache even if request packets come from genu-
ine node. Routers are configured to set optimum points
for traffic coming from different networks. It will help the
routers to not only block unnecessary ICMP packets by
matching ICMP requests and responses but also prevent
cache overflow. The VoIP system must be configured sepa-
rate VLAN for packets originating within a single network
which are monitored by firewall. Barbhuiya et al. have
developed an error detection framework to identify dif-
ferent types of ICMP attack13. It consists of two modules.
Verification module verifies origination of ICMP packets
and Congestion check module extracts bandwidth utili-
zation information using Simple Network Management
Protocol (SNMP).

2.2.6 TCP/ UDP Floods
In TCP flooding attack, hacker creates huge number of SYN
packets with abnormal source IP addresses and sends to
receiver. Receiver node allocates space in its Transmission
Control Buffer (TCB) to each SYN requests. In response
to SYN packets, receiver sends SYN+ACK packets and
waiting for ACK packets. The SYN+ACK packets carry
abnormal IP addresses cause failure to receive ACK
packets which prevents receiver node to clear TCP SYN
requests from buffer and buffer to overflow later. Attacker
can use TCP flood attack against VoIP signaling protocol
such as H.323 and SIP; as both are connection oriented
protocols. Haris et al. have succeed to detect TCP flood
attack in communication by analyzing payload and unus-
able area of the HTTP protocol (e.g., port, flags, source IP,
header length)14.

In UDP flood attack, large number of UDP packets
are created with arbitrary source addresses and port num-
bers and then sends to victim node. Receiver node will
check whether any processes are running on those ports
and find most of the ports are closed. In reply, receiver
node creates large number of destination unreachable
packets. Increase the number of ICMP packets causes
the victim node and the network to overflow. The UDP
flood attack prevents genuine nodes to communicate the
victim node at a particular span of time. Attacker can
use UDP flood attack against VoIP transport protocol
such as RTP and RTCP; as both are connection less pro-
tocol. Bardas et al. proposed a proportional packet rate
assumption technique to differentiate UDP traffic for
detecting forge IP addresses responsible for UDP flood
attacks15.

2.2.7 TCP/ UDP Repla

First, attacker tries to obtain network sensitive information
such as session cookies, password, voice data, signal-
ing data. The information captured by sniffing tools can
be used by attacker to take over the ongoing session.
Sometime victim’s voice can be impersonated by directly
playing back recorded voice data or slightly modifying
voice data and send to destination which helps the hacker
to retrieve more information between caller and callee.
Encrypt the sessions is the best way to stop penetration.
Ali et al. proposed an enhanced port knocking technique
to block TCP replay and port scanning attacks16. It is
worked on source port sequences authentication instead
of destination port sequence number.

Ashutosh Satapathy and L. M. Jenila Livingston

Indian Journal of Science and Technology 5Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

2.2.8 SIP Registration Hijacking
VoIP phones use SIP or other signaling protocols to
register own MAC and IP addresses with call server. In
the reply, each phone will get unique call ID which allows
it to make or receive VoIP call. Attacker tries to capture
registration packets and replaces MAC address from
the packets with own MAC address. It helps the rogue
node to register with victim IP address which causes call
intending for victim node will be forwarded to attacker.
SIP registration hijacking allows burglars to track, block
and manipulate voice traffic. As end node registration is
based on TCP connection, attack will be prevented by
implementing SSL/TLS security policies 17.

2.2.9 Malformed Packets
The hacker creates malicious packets and forwards them
to nodes inside VoIP networks with the help of networking
protocols. The target node processes those packets, causes
open unnecessary ports and processes which degrade per-
formance of the nodes to handle VoIP traffic. New patches
and software will be installed to maintain the node up-to-
date and shutdown the security holes which are vulnerable
to attack. New generation firewalls must be installed to
provide protection against vulnerable packets by filtering
packets based on inbound rules, outbound rules and con-
nection security rules. Geneiatakis et al. have succeeded
in developing a framework that provides defense against
malformed packets for VoIP infrastructure18. The detec-
tion mechanism is based on signature detection which
consists of two parts. First one, general signature detec-
tion (e.g., SIP METHOD, SIP URI, HEADERS) applicable
to all the packets and second one is method specific (e.g.,
CALL-ID, Content-Type, INVITE _METHOD) differ
from packets to packets.

2.2.10 SIP Message Modification
In message modification attack, by running network
sniffing tools (e.g.,Wireshark), attacker penetrates traffic
and tries to modify signaling message for better control over
the VoIP network. Suppose a user initiates a call to victim’s
phone by sending SIP message to call server. Modification
of SIP messages confuses and forces the server to connect
rogue phone. User knows that he is connected to one user
but actually the traffic is routed to attacker. SIP message
modification is carried out by performing MITM attack
such as MAC spoofing, IP spoofing or ARP poisoning. As
SIP and RTP packets transmission are taken place over

TCP and UDP connection; VoIP traffic must be encrypted
by implementing SSL/TLS to prevent this attack17.

2.2.11 SIP Cancel/ Bye Attac

Host (zombie) must be configured in promiscuous mode
to lunch attack into VoIP network by sending SIP Cancel
or Bye packets. Abnormal packets are created and sent
to an IP phone from its connected IP phone by spoofing
its IP address which will proceed to terminate the ongo-
ing call. Attacker can perform this attack continuously
for certain period of time by spoofing more than one IP
addresses which causes denial of service attack. As both
signaling and transport protocols use no authentication
prior to data transmission, so, this attack can be prevented
by encrypt the communication channels. Second, provide
authentication between end device and call server and at
last verification of authenticity of signaling message by
end devices before processing 19.

2.2.12 SIP Malformed Command
In web based VoIP communication (e.g. Facebook,
Google Hangout), Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML)
plays a major role as it carries all the signaling informa-
tion/ command in its body. Parsing SIP command within
HTML code for all possible input is really a headache.
Attacker tries to inject malformed SIP command in input
field and send to server for processing as like SQL injec-
tion. In response either it breaks the server authentication
or degrades the performance of server and end devices.
In counter measure, whether packets are coming from
genuine user or not will be confirmed by call server by
verifying authenticity of SIP message before processing.
Dictionary and fuzzy tests must be performed on HTML
code that filtered tricky SIP malformed packets used to
exploit server. M. Su and C. Tsai propose two functions
to resists malformed SIP packets and flooding attack on
call servers20. First function filters malformed packets
and second one uses Chi-square test to measure flooding
attack on SIP server.

2.2.13 SIP Redirect
Call server cache maintains data structure of Phone’s
caller ID, corresponding MAC and IP address. Attacker
manipulates call server cache to confuse the call server
for call redirection. So, SIP packets coming for receiver
are redirected to attacker specified number. Attacker can
perform DoS and DDoS attack by redirecting a single call

A Comprehensive Survey of Security Issues and Defense Framework for VoIP Cloud

Indian Journal of Science and Technology6 Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

or all the calls to void device(s). So, call server must be
strong password protected and SIP must be authenticated
to prevent redirection attack19.

2.2.14 RTP Payload
Captured packets will be played later to listening the
conversation between the end users using sniffing tools.
Attacker can insert own voice inside RTP payload
which degrade the quality of conversation and some-
time changed in the meaning of conversation. In RTP
tampering, header fields (sequence number, synchroni-
zation source Identifier, payload type, timestamp etc.)
are tampered which make the packets either unusable
or delayed, causes rejection at receiver end. In RTP redi-
rection, header field of packets are modified with other
receiver caller id and IP address causes packets intending
for one will go to other. It can be prevented by configuring
VoIP network with Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol
(SRTP) instead of RTP21. It will encrypt the RTP packets
propagate between callers.

2.2.15 Buffer Overflow
Buffer is the temporary storage allocated by OS in physical
memory for processing data by computer program. Buffer
is mainly divided into four types such as code, data, stack
and heap segments. Attacker tries to perform buffer over-
flow attack by targeting at least one of the segments. It
helps to steal or modify the sensitive information or install
malicious code and execute it. Buffer overflow attacks are
mainly executed by four ways such as long jump, function
activation record, pointer subterfuge and malicious code
execution. It can be defended by writing secure code,
performing bound checking or static and dynamic code
analysis and runtime code instrumentation22.

2.2.16 Operating System
In VoIP communication network, IP phones, Call server,
TFTP server, gateway and DHCP server etc. requires
OS (e.g., Windows, Linux, Mac) to run. So, vulnerabili-
ties in OS make them vulnerable23. OS vulnerabilities
in VoIP phones are mainly of two types. Hard phones
have in build embedded OS which is less vulnerable
and more protected than soft phones. VoIP soft phones
are software packages which are installed on computers
connected to data network. Old hardware, unsupported
drivers, bad integration of APIs, unsecure administrator
APIs expose OS to attack. Like IP phones, web server

OS, DHCP server, and call manager can be exploited
by attacker for seeking of sensitive and crucial infor-
mation (e.g., password, IP table, VoIP configuration
file). As default configuration of OS is not secure, it is
exposed to malwares to install. Its execution opens well
known ports which helps attacker to run abnormal pro-
cesses (e.g., free call, toll fraud). It can be pre-empted by
hardening OS24.

2.2.17 Malwares
A vulnerable piece of executable codes or program used
by unknown third party to install in VoIP network and
bring down its performance by hook or crook. Malicious
programs or malwares are mainly classified as two cat-
egories, first one simple malwares and second one is
self-replicated malwares25. Logic bomb and Trojan horse
are come under non self-replicated/simple malware. Self-
replicating malware such as virus and worm, who spread
its infection over the network within few hours or days.
Trojan horses are dispatched over network for remote
control over victim VoIP phones. Logic bomb helps the
attacker to trigger other dangerous attacks (DoS, DDoS,
sniffing etc.) in timely manner. It will be prevented by
installing updated antivirus and patching up VoIP system
software on regular basis.

2.2.18 Application Flaws
As most of the VoIP communications are web based,
it’s vulnerable to two major application flaws such as
Structured Query Language (SQL) Injection attack and
cross site scripting attacks. In SQL Injection attack, mali-
cious commands are inserted in SQL statements to gain
unauthorized access to server database. It can be prevented
by implementing three primary defense mechanisms
such as defensive coding, SQL injection vulnerabilities
detection and runtime SQL injection attack prevention26.
In cross site scripting attack, hacker uses the advantages
of scripting languages to launch attack by injecting mali-
cious code inside the web application. It can be prevented
by configuring strong authentication and validation for
web based VoIP application27.

2.2.19 TFTP Server Insertion
Hacker tries to plant rouge TFTP server in the network
by disabling/ spoofing actual TFTP server. It forces IP
phones to receive wrong configuration information (e.g.,
Call ID, SIP server IP address and phone number) which

Ashutosh Satapathy and L. M. Jenila Livingston

Indian Journal of Science and Technology 7Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

may provoke bill fraud attack. It will be prevented by
encrypting and authenticating the channel between IP
phones and TFTP server using TLS/ SSL. N. N. Mohamed
et al. suggested compression and encryption technique
to secure TFTP packets28. For compression, lossless
algorithm (e.g., Huffman coding) and for encryption,
symmetric encryption algorithm (e.g., AES, 3-DES) is
used. Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange algorithm is used for
distribution of symmetric key between client and server.

2.2.20 DHCP Server Starvation
Attacker generates random MAC addresses and creates
DHCP request for each MAC address. By flooding DHCP
server with DHCP requests, consumes DHCP IP pool
and to overflow later. It is to be continued until reserved
IP addresses DHCP timers will be expired. Dinu and
Togan proposed digital certificate based DHCP server
authentication to stop DHCP server starvation attack29. It
uses asymmetric key cryptography and digital certificates
for DHCP server authentication and verifying DHCP
response from it to prevent starvation.

2.3 Defense Mechanisms to Prevent Attacks
Defense mechanisms provide basic counter measures to
prevent potential VoIP attacks explained above are broadly
classified into twelve types and listed in Table 2 7,30.

2.3.1 Physical Access Control (PAC)
Physical securities can be implemented mainly three
ways31. First, equipment should be placed and surrounded
by multi-layer barriers, which will prevent from natu-
ral disasters like cyclone, floods etc. (e.g., wall, multiple
locks, fireproof safes etc.). Second, deployment of surveil-
lance systems such as smoke and heat detectors, cameras,
alarms that decreases occurrences of manmade disasters
with maximum amount. At last, practices must be imple-
mented to prevent before any attack has been occur and
fast recovery from damages, if any attack has occurred.

2.3.2 ARP Cache Protection (ACP)
Static ARP cache entries allow maintaining manual
mapping between IP address to MAC address so that

Table 2. Defense mechanisms against attacks

Attacks

Defense
Mechanisms

1.
Ph

ys
ic

al
A

tt
ac

2.
M

A
C

S
po

ofi
ng

3.
A

R
P

Sp
oo

fin
g

4.
IP

S
po
ofi
ng

5.
IC

M
P

Fl
oo

6.
T

C
P/

U
D

P
Fl

oo
ds

7.
T

C
P/

U
D

P
R

ep
la

8.
S

IP
R

eg
is

tr
at

io
n

H
ija

ck
in

9.
M

al
fo

rm
ed

P
ac

ke
ts

10
. S

IP
M

es
sa

ge
M

od
ifi

ca
tio

11
. S

IP
C

an
ce

l/
By

e
A

tt
ac
k

12
. S

IP
M
al
fo
rm
ed

om
m

an
ds

13
. S

IP
R

ed
ir

ec
t

14
. R

T
P

Pa
yl

oa
d

15
. B

uff
er

O
ve

rfl
ow

16
. O

pe
ra

tin
g

Sy
st

17
. M

al
w

ar
es

18
. A

pp
lic

at
io

n
Fl

aw
s

19
. T

FT
P

Se
rv

er
In

se
rt

io
n

20
. D

H
C

P
se

rv
er

S
ta

rv
at

io
n

PAC √

ACP √

OSP √ √ √ √

PA √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

RC √ √

FC √ √ √

SVDT √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

CA √ √

SA √ √ √ √ √ √ √

ME √

IDS √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

Honeypot √ √

A Comprehensive Survey of Security Issues and Defense Framework for VoIP Cloud

Indian Journal of Science and Technology8 Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

reply packets are discarded. ARP anti-spoofing software
ignores ARP spoofing packets by it certification or
crosschecking of its responses. It can be integrated with
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, so
that all static and dynamic IP addresses are certified before
used. Operating system security is provided by configur-
ing its registry files that prevent burglar to update ARP
cache. Registries files are found under HKEY_LOCAL_
MACHINE\SYSTEM folder. Yang, Yang and Ding
proposed a WinPcap driven system that monitors all ARP
packets for ARP spoofing32. WinPcap driver captures and
monitors the packets to verify whether the IP-MAC map-
ping is legal or not by checking packets coming from legal
hosts, before update the cache.

2.3.3 Operating System (OS) Protection (OSP)
OS protection requires vulnerability assessment and
management techniques such as patching OS holes, OS
hardening, updating security software, OS auditing, proper
priviligation to user accounts etc. Kaczmarek and Wrobel
proposed integrity checking and recovery (ICAR) protec-
tion model comprises of three layers and it’s responsible
for hash creation, verification and configuration of secu-
rity policies33. Data layer consists of sensitive information
and database that contains hashes and backup of highly
sensitive information. Kernel layer manages verification
of data integrity, authenticity and confidentiality. Utility
layer is responsible for configuring security policies and
controlling the host.

2.3.4 Port Authentication (PA)
Strong port authentication can provide defense against
interception, interruption and modification of traffic,
interoperability between old and new network protocols
and prevent malicious software execution. IEEE 802.1X
port based authentication supplies security credentials
such as user id, password or digital certificate to legal
user34. User has to use the credential for verification,
before access the resources. If server verifies the creden-
tials are valid, user is permitted to utilize the resources.
deGraaf, Aycock and Jacobson explained port knocking
where authentication data is communicated throughout
network ports to prevent unauthorized access35.

2.3.5 Router Configuration (RC)
Fraudulent route update packets are blocked by
configuring neighbor configuration. The configuration

is available in the following routing protocols such as
Boarder Gateway Protocol (BGP), DRP Server Agent,
Intermediate System-Intermediate System (IS-IS)
etc. Sehgal and Nath proposed secure routing proto-
col which has two phases36. In route discovery phase,
Source node initiates a request to discover a route from
source to destination. Route unitization phase, source
selects one of the route and the destination has to con-
firm that route by sending reply packet to source. Source
sends predecessor packet to notify intermediate nodes
on the route that they should anticipate certain amount
of data within a given time. When this packet reaches at
destination, source receives an acknowledgement from
destination. If not, there is a malicious user in between
the path.

2.3.6 Firewall Configuration (FC)
Firewalls mainly configured into three types such as
packet filters, stateful inspection and application proxy.
Packet filter monitors all the packets header fields such
as source and destination address, port number and pro-
tocol used based on predefined rules. Stateful inspection
firewall tracks network connection state and differentiate
packets based on the type of connection. It is also called
dynamic packet filtering firewall and its fail to examine
the content of the payload. Application proxy firewall
allows the entire traffic pass through a proxy server, which
verifies packets header including its content at application
level for any malicious activities. Chacon, Benhaddou and
Gurkan proposed Virtual Private Network (VPN) based
firewall that provides more security to Boarder Gateway
Router (BGR) by making voice information less vulner-
able to both inside and outside attack37.

2.3.7 Separate VoIP Data Traffic (SVDT)
In VoIP communication, both voice and data share
common medium for transmission which raises threats
against voice. Butcher, Li and Guo proposed separation
of voice from normal data flow can block a number of
attacks which are vulnerable to FTP, HTTP and SMTP
etc. 7. Separate physical network causes more expense,
so, it can be possible through VLAN technology. VLANs
are implemented by network switches allow routing on
same VLAN between devices. Both VoIP voice and data
are segmented using firewall where PCs are connected
to data segment and VoIP phone are connected to voice
segment.

Ashutosh Satapathy and L. M. Jenila Livingston

Indian Journal of Science and Technology 9Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

2.3.8 Configuration Authentication (CA)
In VoIP telephony network obtaining the configuration
information from unwanted vulnerable server makes end
phones more sensitive to launch attacks. Danforth and
Gould described different ways of authenticating TFTP
server before downloading configuration file38. During
manufacturing time, the VoIP phones are configured
with public keys of different TFTP servers gives a way for
authentication. Another way the handsets are configured
with a key (public or secret) of TFTP server. After getting
own IP address and TFTP server IP address from DHCP
server, phone should establish a secure connection with
TFTP server using SSL/TLS. During handshaking, verifi-
cation happens using public key that phone contains and
private key of TFTP server.

2.3.9 Signaling Authentication (SA)
In VoIP network, SIP is used to establish, redirect or
terminate the connection. Internet Protocol Security
(IPSec) and SSL/TLS are used to provide strong authen-
tication and encryption against attack. Key agreement
protocol is used in small scale deployment where trust
being established between phones and server. Kilinc
and Yanik presented different authentication and key
management schemes for SIP protocols which mainly
include Password Authenticated Key Exchange (PAKE)
based schemes, Hash and Symmetric Encryption based
schemes, Public Key Cryptography (PKC) schemes and
ID Based and Weil Pairing based schemes39.

2.3.10 Medium Encryption (ME)
In VoIP, medium encryption is broadly classified into two
types such as symmetric and asymmetric encryption40.
Encryption strength is mainly depending upon the strength
of the algorithm and the size of key is used. In encryption
techniques key management and distribution also play an
important role41. To maintain confidentiality and integrity,
symmetric key is distributed with the help of the techniques
such as simple secret key distribution, secret key distribu-
tion with confidentiality and authentication and hybrid
key distribution. Public key sharing has taken place using
public announcement, publicly available directory, public
key authority or public key certificate techniques.

2.3.11 Intrusion Detection System (IDS)
Hardware/ software are used to monitor network traffic
for malicious and unlawful actions and notify to admin by

warning message or raising alarm. Basically IDS is of two
types such as Network Intrusion Detection System and
Host Intrusion Detection System. It commonly uses three
methodologies to track down malicious activities. Signature
based detection is the valuable and straight forward meth-
ods to uncover known threats. Anomaly based detection is
effective one to identify new and expected threats. Stateful
protocol analysis tracks down protocols performance and
differentiates abnormal flow of commands. All these three
methods use five different approaches such as statistics
based, pattern based, rule based, state based and heuristic
based which were discussed by Liao, Lin, Lin and Tung42.

2.3.12 Honeypot
It is a trap set to detect, deflect or counter attempt at unau-
thorized use of information system which is seems to be
contain of information or resources of values to attackers.
It is classified based on their deployment and based on
their level of involvement43. Based on its deployment it’s
of two types, one is production honeypot and second one
is research honeypot. According to level of involvement
or design perspective, pure honeypot, higher interaction
honeypots, low interaction honeypots are three types
of honeypots. Goel, Sardana and Joshi presented a wide
range of honeypot systems and proposed framework for
honeypot system that enclose a broad range of honeypot
architectures and categories previous systems according
to framework based on attacks44.

3. Proposed Work
VoIP cloud with all security configurations as discuss
earlier is not enough to provide security against all the
threats discussed earlier. So, effective network based IPS
architecture using LVD technique is proposed for VoIP
cloud shown in Figure 3.

The proposed system involves twosteps process.
1) Video watermarking and extraction and 2) Verification
using LVD system

3.1 Video Watermarking and Extraction
There are several VoIP-specific protocols but they fall in
two categories: (i) transport protocols (e.g., RTP) and
(ii) signaling protocols (e.g., SIP). Transport protocols
carry the live video data after the proper the connection.
Signaling protocols executes control information like
CONNECT, DISCONNECT etc.

A Comprehensive Survey of Security Issues and Defense Framework for VoIP Cloud

Indian Journal of Science and Technology10 Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

Sequence numbers play important roles to prevent SSL
attacks in real time communication. So at the first step
the sequence number is attached with the video/ frames
taken during the connection/disconnection time. Since
the control information is not a video data, it has to be
embedded with video using watermark embedding tech-
nique and forwarded to the server side for authentication
as illustrated in Figure 4. In the server side, the water-
marked video will be extracted and the video submitted
to the LVD for verification.

IPS in VoIP cloud not only monitors the packets
are coming from legitimate caller or not but also moni-
tors sequence number of packets and its content. In real
time communication succeeding packet sequence num-
ber always larger than current packet sequence number
and contents varies packet to packet and time to time
which helps IPS to prevent SSL attacks to be taken place.
If any packet with old sequence number or repetition of

information inside the payload, it will be dropped by VoIP
server. Always signaling packets will get high priority over
data packets.

3.2 Verification using LVD System
The aim of the LVD is to determine if the biometric data
is being captured whether it’s from a legitimate live user
or it is replayed or synthetic. It is verified by correlating
the user’s voice with lip-face motion. The Whole LVD is
divided into seven steps. The whole process of verifica-
tion is divided into two stages. The flow diagram of LVD
is shown in Figure 5. There are two types of videos passed
to LVD system for verification. 1) Extracted watermarked
video2) RTP message along with the video.

3.2.1 Seven Steps of LVD
Step 1: Image and Voice Acquisition: Video and Voice

are captured by web cam and microphone respec-
tively.

Step 2: Image and Speech Enhancement: The captured
information goes for reduction of noise, and this
can be achieved by smoothing and sharpening the
audio- visual data.

Figure 2. VoIP cloud architecture.

Figure 3. Proposed VoIP cloud architecture.

Figure 4. Video watermarking scheme for signaling message. Figure 4. Video watermarking scheme for signaling

message.

Figure 5. Flow diagram of liveness voice detection technique.

Figure 6. Proposed N-IPS architecture.

Figure 5. Flow diagram of liveness voice detection
technique.

Figure 2. VoIP cloud architecture.

Figure 3. Proposed VoIP cloud architecture.

Figure 4. Video watermarking scheme for signaling message.
Figure 3. Proposed VoIP cloud architecture.

Ashutosh Satapathy and L. M. Jenila Livingston

Indian Journal of Science and Technology 11Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

Step 3: Face and Voice Identification: Real time faces
detection and speech detection can be done by
motion analysis. Two level audio- visual fusion
techniques can be used for effective face and voice
identification by localization of multiple active
speakers45. First level is based on speaker activity
detection used to find out who are the live speak-
ers and second level uses Gaussian method for
integration of audio-visual modalities results to
increase robustness.

Step 4: Facial Verification and Speaker Recognition: In Face
verification and speaker recognition process, user
authenticity is checked. If NO, the call is termi-
nated. If yes, it will go for next level verification.

Step 5: Features Extraction: From lip movement, the
motion based features will be extracted (Phase 1).
From speech, the corresponding speech features
will be extracted (Phase 2). Extracted features at
both phases must be language and text indepen-
dent. Lip movement involves the following two
elements. Fastness: frequency is the prime factor
calculated from lip motion. Loudness: Power is the
prime factor calculated from area covered by lips
(distance between top and bottom lip).

Step 6: Liveness Voice Detection: Features from phase 1 is
correlated with features from phase 2. If it falls within
fixed threshold values range, it is Ok, the connection
will be continued else it will be terminated. In LVD,
liveness score evolution algorithm can be used to
measure the synchrony between the lip movement
and voice in video sequence46. Multimodal sys-
tem based on cross modal fusion technique can be
also used for liveness detection47. Audio and visual
speech features are extracted from video sequence
to measure the degree of synchrony between the lip
movement and voice in video sequence.

3.3 IPS Deployment
As VoIP communication handles real time data, IPS
deployment is also an important factor to make the service
more effective and efficient. In pass-by monitoring con-
figuration, a copy of the traffic is sent to the IPS while the
original packet travels to one Public Network to another
public network as shown in Figure 6. If the IPS identifies
an anomaly with the packet, the IDS/IPS can either log/
record the activity or prevent the attack from being suc-
cessful. As an effective IPS, false positive/ negative should
have minimized with maximum efficiency.

4. Conclusion
The flexible and reliable communication is reached by
sending the voice over the internet by using new gen-
eration VoIP services. This research paper summarizes
security threats related to VoIP cloud. Due to VoIP
vulnerabilities including eavesdropping, DoS, D-DoS,
MITM attack, it is necessary to protect signaling and real
time information. A security framework for VoIP cloud
is proposed which uses the concept of LVD to provide
resistance against threats. The use of pass-by IPS makes
this proposed framework has no effect on quality of VoIP
calls as the copy of the original packets are forwarded to
IPS and analyzed. At last, further research has to be per-
formed to raise the level of security due to randomness of
occurrence of cyber-attacks.

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