A White Paper by Mike Gates, Sales Engineer, REDCOM

Like it or not, we are living in a virtual world and using the internet for everyday tasks has become commonplace. We can visit a virtual branch of our bank and pay our bills, stream the latest episode of our favorite television program, or even take our credit card on a spending spree at a virtual mall. The internet is a major component of our lives today and provides an extremely convenient service. We sometimes need to be cautious when using that service, however. What if your bank account or credit card information was available to others during your stroll through the virtual world?

While this document won’t provide specific details on protecting your bank account, the methods used to protect this type of information are applicable to protecting other types of data. Much like the security used by a web browser to protect your bank account information the same methods can be used to protect other types of information, such as the signaling and media transmitted during a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) call.

Without a doubt, the methods and tools used to secure information that is transmitted across a network are complex subjects. Entire textbooks are devoted to each of these areas. This document is not intended to provide a comprehensive study of these subjects. Rather, a brief overview with enough information to understand the fundamentals of the subject is the goal here. Sources of additional reading will be provided at the end of the document should you wish to dig deeper into these topics.