SIP author hit by IP spam
The co-author of the session initiation protocol (SIP) upon which voice over IP (VoIP) runs has become the latest victim of voice spam, it has been revealed.
Henning Schulzrinne has admitted that Colombia University, where he is professor of computer science, does not have a stringent firewall policy in place, paving the way open for unsolicited marketing messages to be sent over its multiple phone extensions.
Mr Sculzrinne stated that 'spit' (spam over Internet Telephony) is relatively rare, with VoIP offering businesses and organisations a host of benefits without any great security risk, though his institution's unguarded network was "just too attractive" an opportunity for the spammers to pass up.
"Spam filters are getting so good now that it's rarer for spam to actually be read, it's nearly always filtered out and most people know to ignore it if it isn't," he said.
"The phone, though, is something you instinctively pick [up] and you would always go to pick up messages. It's a very tempting new medium for spammers, particularly if they can find a way of building up the huge networks necessary to automatically distribute voice spam as they have done with email spam." 
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