Enterprise Communications Featured Article

One hot area in enterprise communications is WebRTC. But like any technology, it also comes with its new challenges.

WebRTC enables video, voice or chat-based communication to occur between two endpoints without having to deploy an agent. Instead of needing both parties to use the same client software, WebRTC works right from any modern Web browser. This makes the technology easy to use and easy to embed into applications.

“Rather than two companies having to figure out how to get their unified communications tools to interoperate with one another, for example, they can turn to WebRTC as a means to collaborate with one another,” noted Lindsay Kintner, vice president of engineering at Tadiran (News - Alert) Telecom, in a recent blog post. “As well, rather than customers having to download plug-ins to launch a videoconference with a business's contact center, they're able to click a button on their browser and look an agent in the eyes while expressing their grievances.”

Yet WebRTC also introduces some new security challenges.

Since WebRTC exposes a browser’s API, hackers could gain access to other parts of a network if proper security is not put in place.

A second security challenge can happen on the network side; because WebRTC facilitates the movement of traffic between the browser and the network, a hole in the network could be exploited by hackers.

Third, if a virus or some other type of malware infects a browser, this virus can now infect other applications, creating much damage in the process.

“Luckily, businesses can leverage advanced SBCs [session border controllers] to protect SIP networks so that when traffic is passed from one network to another via WebRTC, the SBC works as a bouncer that prevents illicit activity-like denial-of-service attacks-from occurring,” Kintner noted.

Tadiran, for instance, has partnered with Ingate Systems to leverage the company’s SIParator SBC to protect Tadiran's Aeonix Unified Communications (News - Alert) & Collaboration platform.

“Thanks to Ingate's SBC, customers who deploy Aeonix won't have to worry about their communications being intercepted or someone gaining unauthorized access to their networks via their communication channels,” he noted. “Instead, the SIParator leverages SRTP and TLS to encrypt SIP signaling and other media, and in doing so, ensures that the integrity of enterprise communications is not compromised.”