Ribbon Communications Inc., a global provider in secure and intelligent cloud communications, launched a suite of Unified Communications (UC) security and intelligent operations applications for its Ribbon Protect platform.
Ribbon Protect provides a single view of the end to end network, critical for UC threat detection, fraud management and network operations.
Bad actors are constantly looking for the easiest path into corporate networks. The growth of SIP adoption has led to new security breaches as bad actors prey on vulnerabilities created by a poor understanding of the risks and subsequent lack of best practices to address threats and protect the real-time communications network.
Some bad actors will target SIP specifically for toll fraud, but more likely this will be their point of entry for other forms of malicious activity, such as Telephony Denial of Service (T-DoS) attacks, to disrupt operations or using the UC network to exfiltrate large amounts of mission-critical data by simulating voice and video calls. SIP serves as a means to an end in these scenarios, and a complete security plan must include protection of the real time communications network.
“Corporate networks are an increasingly tempting revenue source for cyber thugs in today’s information economy,” said Kevin Riley, CTO Ribbon. “The tremendous growth of SIP adoption means that enterprises must focus on the associated vulnerabilities to address these threats. That’s where Ribbon Protect comes in.”
Ribbon offers a number of specific communication security and network operation applications that can easily be added to the Ribbon Protect software platform through a simple feature license:
- TDOSProtect uses advanced algorithm and machine learning techniques to mitigate attacks from large volumes of unwanted calls coming into the network. While these calls may appear valid, they can tie up or crash mission-critical communication applications such as call centres, IVRs or PBX trunks with long call duration times.
- NETProtect distributes threat intelligence policies across the entire communications network to close the security aperture exposed by Unified Communications (UC). Distributed security.policies between Session Border Controllers (SBC) and next-generation firewalls help stop bad actors at the edge of the network, while delivering a more effective and holistic security methodology across the converged data and communication network.
- FRAUDProtect looks for repetitive calling patterns to and from anomalous places and flags them in real-time. As more fraudulent calls are made they are quickly identified and blocked, thus mitigating expensive toll charges.
- ROBOProtect uses advanced databases to quickly identify the source of the robocall and apply policies to the edge of the network, stopping these calls before they disrupt customers or employees.
- Intelligent network operations suite helps keep communications running smoothly by leveraging proactive analytics designed to improve the user experience and reduce operational costs, delivering intelligent service quality. This suite provides network-wide monitoring, reporting, troubleshooting and can provide SIP ladder diagrams across multiple platforms. Network analysts can also leverage the capacity planning application to accurately assess future UC network growth.
The Ribbon Protect platform quickly and easily integrates with existing unified communications (UC) network investments, using powerful and advanced behavioral analytics to deliver a new level of security and intelligent operations.
By establishing a baseline of voice, video sessions and IP port activity, Ribbon Protect and its applications quickly identify and mitigate deviations from this baseline, whether T-DoS attacks, quality of experience issues, toll fraud, or potential data exfiltration.
Ribbon Communications’ Security portfolio includes Ribbon Protect plus the suite of UC Security applications; virtual and appliance based SBCs, Session Border Controllers, and Ribbon PSX enabling secure, smart, and simple solutions that eliminate threats and network complexities associated with adopting unified communications for the enterprise.
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