We all agree that cyber attacks are a constant concern these days. Businesses worldwide are struggling to develop tools and technologies that can help them detect and prevent cyber-attacks. It is shocking to know that 43% of cyber attacks are targeted at small businesses, but only 14% are ready to defend themselves (source)

Amongst these attacks, DoS attacks i.e. Denial of Service attacks are one of the major threats that do nothing but leave businesses completely helpless. At times these attacks cause damage to a company’s infrastructure and assets which are hard to recover. By flooding the entire network of the target business, Denial of Service Attacks stops legitimate users from accessing company resources such as computer systems.

Infiltrating the network of a company, a cyber attack, or specifically, a DoS attack can cause great loss to a company’s reputation, clients, revenue, and sensitive data. It can bring the entire communication to a complete halt or otherwise cause malfunctions. It is shocking to see that 69% of businesses in the U.S. have reported being suffered a DoS attack.

So, how can an organization stop or prevent such attacks? What are some practical tools that can help in mitigating Denial of Service Attacks? Are Firewalls still an effective security tool when it comes to VoIP networks? Well, let’s find the answer to these questions.

First of all, it is important to understand that the protection provided by firewalls to your business network is simply not sufficient in view of today’s high-grade cyber attacking techniques. Your business needs better safeguarding and Session Border Controllers to have the answer to it.

An SBC or session border controller is a network function that regulates and protects IP communication networks. While the security functions of Session Border Controllers are quite similar to traditional firewalls, the difference lies in the way they monitor the individual sessions and voice packets. SBCs are certainly more advanced in their functioning and thus are a must-have

How SBCs Protect a VoIP Network?

In this post, we are going to learn how a company can make use of a session border controller to protect their network from DoS attacks and other types of cyberattacks.

Below mentioned are the major security functions performed by an SBC:

● A Session Border Controller sits at the edge of the network and acts as a gatekeeper that offers high-level security to the network through its intelligent functioning. By monitoring each phone call or session which also includes media streams of video conference calls arriving through the network, a Session Border Controller only allows authorized sessions to connect and transfer. In simple words, it acts as a back-to-back user agent for each call and keeps the unwanted traffic out of the network.

● Call limiting is another strategy used by Session Border Controllers to limit the amount of traffic within the active connections. Telecom frauds usually attack IP communication channels with open ports. Cyber attackers even sell access controls of the trunks or generate fraudulent international calls in high volumes to premium-rate numbers. The cost of the bill for these calls is borne by the user who owns the connection. When there’s a Session Border Controller in place, such activities cannot happen as SBC makes use of call limiting and keeps a limit to the available bandwidth of the connection.

● NAT Traversal is another effective function performed by session border controllers. The inner details or architecture of the network is kept hidden so that intruders cannot detect the topology of the network. Session Border Controllers even substitute the address of the private IPs with their own headers to keep them safe from intrusion.

From the above-mentioned functions of Session Border Controllers, we can simply say that attackers send malformed packets to crash the service and thus cause harm to the business, but SBCs can detect and block such attempts to protect the network.

Deploy Session Border Controllers to Protect Your Network

SBCs come in two different forms, i.e. hardware and software SBCs. Hardware SBCs are equipment based that are installed on-site. Whereas cloud-based Session Border Controllers are provided in the form of a service that companies or businesses can subscribe to by paying monthly or yearly installments. Communication Service providers who are in the IP service business when looking for the right Session Border Controller must check certain parameters such as session capacity, concurrent calls, call routing, etc.

Any business that has IP networks or more specifically VoIP networks certainly requires extra security. Session Border Controllers can act as great security agents because of their ability to detect and block potential threats and raise alarms as well. Choosing the right type of session border controller can make a significant difference to the security of your business.