VOIP Security via Mandatory Location Header
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current VOIP security methods, such as the P-Visited-Network-ID approach, fail to provide accurate and reliable caller location information due to coarse granularity and vulnerability to modifications by malicious network devices, making it ineffective in identifying spoofing attacks.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a mandatory, unmodifiable header in the transmission protocol to request and verify the caller's geographical location information, ensuring its veracity before presenting it to the callee, thereby enhancing VOIP security by distinguishing suspicious calls.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If the P-Visited-Network-ID approach is used to track caller location, then the network can identify visited network devices, but the location granularity is coarse (country level only) and can be modified by malicious devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a trusted network element (TNE) as an intermediary that acts as a mediator between the caller and the network. The TNE inserts a mandatory header with location information that cannot be modified by malicious visited network devices. This intermediary ensures the reliability and precision of location data by controlling the insertion point and protecting the data integrity throughout transmission.
Solution Approach 2:
The location information is inserted into the mandatory header at the earliest possible point in the call setup process, specifically by the first network node that the message traverses (such as the P-CSCF in IMS SIP). This preliminary action ensures that the location data is established before the message passes through any potentially malicious visited network devices, preventing later modification.
2Reliability
If the via header is used to track call path, then the network can monitor call routing, but the header is optional and can be anonymized making location identification unreliable
Solution Approach 1:
The patent separates the location tracking function from the existing optional via header by introducing a dedicated mandatory header specifically for location information. This segmentation ensures that location tracking is reliably performed through a dedicated mechanism while the via header can continue to serve its original optional routing tracking purpose, reducing protocol complexity overhead.
3Reliability
If hop-by-hop integrity protection mechanisms like IPsec are applied to prevent P-header modification, then location information reliability improves, but network complexity and overhead increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of requiring complex hop-by-hop integrity protection mechanisms at every network node, the patent uses a trusted network element as a mediator that inserts the location information in a protected manner. The TNE's trusted status and controlled insertion point provide integrity protection without requiring IPsec or similar complex mechanisms throughout the entire network path.
Data Source
AI summary
The VOIP call security is enhanced using the caller's geographical location information, which is transmitted to the home network device using an unmodifiable header. The home network device checks the veracity of the caller's geographical location information to determine whether the caller is suspicious.