November 22, 2005
Security concerns regarding P2P communication
The rise in security concerns regarding peer-to-peer communication has prompted IT administrators to block services such as Skype while vendors are beginning to focus on the security issues. The Cisco Security Agent is just one of the many applications that companies are deploying in order to detect and block the use of Skype. Further information regarding security with Skype is available here.
Skype has made it clear that its VoIP tool is not enterprise grade. Its proprietary technology used for traversing NAT is not considered safe by experts. However, Skype maintains that it does not have any immediate plans of changing the technology which has facilitates easy VoIP communication without having to reconfigure routers and firewalls. Even though Skype offers few monitoring and auditing options for businesses, it can be used for reducing long-distance communication costs, especially to places where the IT infrastructure is better than the telecom infrastructure.
An alternative to Skype’s proprietary solution is the ICE method which employs Simple Traversal of UDP through NATs (STUN) and Traversal Using Relay NAT (TURN) protocols. ICE is being considered by IETF and has found favor with Microsoft Corp and Cisco.
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