VoIP Spam

Uh-oh: hackers have proven that Voice over internet Telephony (VoIP) accounts are prone to the nuisance of voice spam - by attacking the university where the co-author of the protocol that VoIP runs on is professor of computer science.

Henning Schulzrinne, co-author of the session initiation protocol (SIP) that is used by all the major VoIP services except Skype, believes the attack (which left unsolicited marketing messages on multiple phone extensions at Columbia University) might have been targeted at him, but could also have been a result of the institution not having a stringent firewall policy in place. Either way, he - like many in the computer and internet security industries - now believes VoIP is the next big target for spammers.

If VoIP Spam or “spit” as it’s called (for Spam over Internet Telephony) becomes even a quarter as pervasive as email spam, it could cripple the VoIP industry. I have a VoIP line and I can tell you that if I start getting even five or six spam voice mails a day, that’s going to be the end of my VoIP line.