Hacking Vonage phone #'s

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: May 02, 2005 Posts: 1

I was told that someone can hack your Vonage phone # , etc and use it to make international calls that will be billed to your account. Is there any truth to that and, if so, what can one do to avoid it from happening?

Posts: 2251 · Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 11:48 pm Post subject: Re: Hacking Vonage phone #'s

itsagr8lyf wrote:

I was told that someone can hack your Vonage phone # , etc and use it to make international calls that will be billed to your account. Is there any truth to that and, if so, what can one do to avoid it from happening?

I label myself as one of the most knowledgeable people regarding Vonage and I have never heard this.

Please reference some details, a link maybe?

Posts: 1424 · Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 6:53 am Post subject:

There have been presentations about security vulnerabilities for Voip calling which include call hijacking and call forward hijacking. I also have not heard of any specific instances of this happening with Vonage.

I am wondering if the source of any rumor discussing number hijacking isn't rooted in caller id spoofing which isn't a threat to your account at all but was something that Vonage was demonstrated as permitting some time ago or alternatively resulting from a human engineering based attack on call transfer common to PBX systems.

I am concerned that any post discussing specifically what to do to prevent hijacking (rather than spoofing) from happening serves merely as a roadmap for actually doing it. Therefore the best solution would be to offer some general security tips that will prevent common attacks.

use a good password (random, more than 6 characters, numbers, mixed case, punctuation)

Vonage

Secure your wireless network

use a firewall

use a virus scanner

remove spyware

Doing these things is much like having an alarm system. If someone is specifically targeting you then you are probably still vulnerable, but if someone is looking for a target of opportunity then they will pass you by. I say this because Vonage has a number of opportunities to increase security (which have been discussed in other forums) but is suitable for most users most of the time.

Remember, most hacks, especially telephone hacks, were more about human engineering than technology. The most common one involves hacker calling a victim, saying they are from the phone company and asking the victim to dial a 'test code'. The test code is actually the code to transfer the caller to an outgoing dial-tone from the victim's PBX. With Vonage I don't believe this type of call forwarding is available (i.e. I don't think you can transfer a caller to a dial-tone, but I haven't tried it).

Posts: 2251 · Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 10:39 am Post subject:

scerruti wrote:

I am wondering if the source of any rumor discussing number hijacking isn't rooted in...

This would be the source of such rumors: CWA

Posts: 196 · Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 11:15 am Post subject:

dconnor wrote:

scerruti wrote:

I am wondering if the source of any rumor discussing number hijacking isn't rooted in...

This would be the source of such rumors: CWA

OH. Big surprise.

Posts: 215 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Nov 24, 2004 Posts: 215

anyone who is going to invest the time in hacking the proxy servers and passwords to make an international call from another account deserves to do so in my book ...

Posts: 188 · Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 12:38 pm Post subject:

This was on Yahoo! news today

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1093&ncid=1093&e=4&u=/pcworld/20050505/tc_pcworld/120668

Posts: 42 · Full Forum Member Joined: Apr 20, 2005 Posts: 42

Yes, it is very possible. I had some problems last night and they last about 10 minutes. I ordered a feature on Vonage and wanted to check the status this morning and someone called an international number that lasted for minutes. I was charged 24 cents for the call and 1 cent for tax. I called billing and he saw that.
I told the billing rep. that I don't call international numbers. He looked up the call and it was to 765-374-xxxx and I told him, that's funny. That's not an international number and he said yes it was. I asked him how could that be because that is my own number. He took the charge off and I called the cancellation dept.
I spoke with Danelle and she said she had a call before me with someone saying the samething. She said I am not even going to try to keep you because that is problem and could continue. The billing rep and cancellation rep. said that is an issue they are working on.
Just a heads up, just it is possible. If Vonage will implete some type of firewall or security messure, I "WILL" return but not until then.

Posts: 90 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 90

Communications Workers of America? That Figures.

God, I hate these folks. I have a 50-pair copper network interface at an investment property. Had the thing installed so my tenants could all have nice easy access to Ma Bell. All brand new equipment, set up nicely in a well-lit phone room.

Two years later, it is a rat's nest of dangling wires, punchboards screwgunned into the sheetrock, and iffy copper connections twisted together.

If you even BREATH on it, you disconnect several tenant's phone lines.

The CWA operating procedure seems to be as follows:

1. Rip out whatever the previous technician did.

2. Install a new puchboard and run only the wires necessary to make the phones work at the jacks they are plugged into.

3. NEVER DOCUMENT OR LABEL ANYTHING.

4. Call your girlfriend on the company's fax line. Chat for an hour.

5. Leave cigarette butts, soda cans, and other debris in the phone room. Make it look like a pigpen.

6. Repeat ad nauseum.

Whenever a CWA shows up at the site, expect several callbacks to reconnect the phone lines for the other tenants whose phone lines were ripped out by the install technician.

I just went through this in Florida at the condo. Bell South tech rips out my phone line to install the neighbor's phone. When I call to complain, they send out a new tech who reconnects ONE phone, and then they send me a bill for $100 for a service call.

The joke is on them. I did a disconnect and stuck them with the $100 bill.

Gee, and you wonder why I'm happy with Vonage!

If only Grandpa Alex were alive today...

Posts: 492 · Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 4:51 pm Post subject:

There has been much talk in the technical journals regarding the hacking and disrupting of Voip communications. I don't know how Vonage's servers are programmed, but I doubt the port numbers are published, telnet is unlikely, as is server operation. I have to agree with jdr30. However, in the same way that Vonage has been blocked before, it can happen again. On a mass scale or on an individual.