SecSip: A Stateful Firewall for SIP-based Networks

TL;DR

SecSip introduces a stateful SIP firewall that enhances security in SIP-based networks by tracking data across multiple SIP elements, demonstrating effective threat mitigation and performance in real-world tests.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel vulnerability-aware SIP stateful firewall with a flexible configuration language for improved security management.

Findings

Effective threat detection and mitigation demonstrated

High performance and efficiency shown through real-world measurements

Flexible configuration language enables detailed security policies

Abstract

SIP-based networks are becoming the de-facto standard for voice, video and instant messaging services. Being exposed to many threats while playing an major role in the operation of essential services, the need for dedicated security management approaches is rapidly increasing. In this paper we present an original security management approach based on a specific vulnerability aware SIP stateful firewall. Through known attack descriptions, we illustrate the power of the configuration language of the firewall which uses the capability to specify stateful objects that track data from multiple SIP elements within their lifetime. We demonstrate through measurements on a real implementation of the firewall its efficiency and performance.