RedShift Networks Intros Security Appliance for Unified Communications Networks

The number of cyber attacks against corporate networks has been growing exponentially since the financial crisis of 2008. With the multitude and variety of end points, corporate communications networks -- and in particular unified communications networks -- have never been more vulnerable. Recent reports from Internet security firms including Symantec (News - Alert) indicate that hackers are increasingly carry out eavesdropping and denial of service attacks in corporate voice and video networks.

 

In response to this, RedShift Networks (News - Alert) has introduced a new application-aware threat management solution geared specifically for unified communications networks.

 

According to a company press release, the new solution -- which is available either as an on-premises or cloud-based system -- protects IP-PBXs and UC servers against a wide range of attacks including illegitimate signal interception, tampering or eavesdropping (MITM), voice and video denial of service attacks, fuzzing and anomaly based attacks, and war-dialing attacks. It also provides complete visibility and control over all communications traffic.

 

In addition the comprehensive solution ensures safe and RFC compliant SIP/H323/SCCP protocol implementation; tracks and detects misbehaved endpoints; enforces proper authentication and authorization policies; and “hides” internal UC network and topology.

 

What’s more the system protects against network scanning and endpoint discovery; enforces encryption (SIP/TLS/SRTP); protects against voice and video SPAM; and helps prevent toll fraud.

The system scales to meet the needs of small businesses through large enterprises. As stated in the release, the RedShift Falcon appliance supports up to 100 users, the RedShift Hawk appliance supports up to 3,500 users, and the RedShift Eagle appliance supports up to 50,000 users. The system is available today and can be purchased direct through RedShift or through local and regional distributors and resellers.

 

The company claims this is the first comprehensive threat management solution made specifically for UC networks. The solution makes use of RedShift’s patent-pending technology that combines learned behavior of the networks/users along with sophisticated real-time mathematical algorithms to detect specific types of attacks.

 

“UC is rapidly becoming an enabler of business process automation,” said Zeus Kerravala (News - Alert), senior vice president of research at Yankee Group. “By removing human latency from the process that raises the bar on security from simple VoIP security to UC threat mitigation to ensure the integrity of the processes.”

 

Amitava Mukherjee (News - Alert), president and CEO, RedShift Networks, pointed out that companies are increasingly relying on unified communications to streamline operations, gain new efficiencies, boost employee productivity and reduce telecommunications costs. Therefore they are increasingly relying on UC for “mission critical” operations.

 

“Downtime due to security breaches is completely unacceptable in these mission critical environments,” Mukherjee said. “According to Gartner, one hour of PBX (News - Alert) downtime is equivalent to $6.54 million of loss for an average enterprise. This number is exponentially larger and at times of immeasurable value in call centers, financial institutions, government entities and telecommunications companies. RedShift has built the worlds most sophisticated and comprehensive security solution for the global unified communications and collaboration market.”

 

According to RedShift the new security solution “sees, reacts, protects and reports concerning threats from your local and extended network and the cloud beyond.”