[VOIPSEC] Soft Phone Vulnerabilities

[Martyn Davies]

A softphone is just a normal executable application, no more and no
less.  Its just that (unlike, for example, Word) its main job is to
handle streaming audio.

As an application it has full access to all the resources of the PC, and
runs with the rights of the user that started the softphone.  Therefore
if you login with administrative rights (which I guess an awful lot of
people do), the softphone application has all administrative rights to
the machine.  Therefore if a softphone is carrying some kind of Trojan
or backdoor inside it, an attacker could do any of the following:

* Listen to any inputs on the soundcard
* Read all your files and transmit them somewhere else
* Capture data being sent to the screen, or coming in from the keyboard
* Scour your machine looking for passwords, etc.
* Disable antivirus or other protective tools
* Monitor the LAN that the computer is attached to, and perhaps even
attack other machines

Since the soundcard is always powered on in a PC, there's nothing to
stop an application switching on the mic at any time and listening.

In summary, its not just 'softphone vulnerablities' that are the worry
per se, but that fact that the whole PC is vulnerable to attack if the
wrong kind of malware gets run on it.  

This is why people worry about Skype being used in the workplace,
because (a) a lot of desktops have it across the world, which is an
opportunity for hackers and (b) if they succeed in compromising Skype
then not just audio but all kinds of secrets could be funneled out of
the organization without anyone even knowing that an attack was
underway.

Regards,
Martyn


-----Original Message-----
From: Voipsec-bounces at voipsa.org [mailto:Voipsec-bounces at voipsa.org] On
Behalf Of Jacobs, Marcia
Sent: 06 June 2006 19:04
To: Voipsec at voipsa.org
Subject: [VOIPSEC] Soft Phone Vulnerabilities

Wondering if anyone can recommend a good security document on
softphones, and the potential of turning on microphone remotely.

Thanks!

Marcia Jacobs
Sandia National Labs
CA Telecommunication Ops
Phone & Fax:  925.294.1586
mjacob at sandia.gov

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