VoIP security info: the standards folks weigh in

I strongly recommend you download and read the National Institute of Standards and Technology's new report, "Security Considerations For Voice Over IP Systems."

After a basic overview of VoIP, this 99-page tome has sections on the basics and the security implications of Quality of Service, H.323, SIP, Gateway Decomposition (Media Gateways and Media Gateway Controllers,which appear to the outside as a single VOIP gateway), Firewalls, Address Translation, Call Establishment and Encryption.

Security solutions come next, with sections on encryption at the end points, Secure Real Time Protocol, key management for Secure Real Time Protocol, scheduling schemes, packet size compression, and resolving incompatibilities between Network Address Translation and IP security.

Not only is the report free, but your taxes paid for it (well, then, does that mean it's still free?).