By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Amid a growing pile of high-tech busts, Internet telephony is a rare technology that is having an immediate impact. However, the bargain hunters who are attracted by the cheaper rates may have second thoughts after learning that Internet calls could be more vulnerable to interception.
Many industry insiders believe that the market for Internet telephony, or voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), is on the verge of exploding with the government introducing number portability late this month, allowing telephone users to switch to cheaper Web-based services without changing numbers.
Smaller telephony carriers like LG Dacom and SK Broadband see VoIP as an opportunity to win over customers from telecom giant, KT, which currently controls more than 90 percent of the fixed-line market.
And their aggressive marketing efforts are paying off, with the number of LG Dacom's VoIP customers recently exceeding the one million mark.
The VoIP sector is obviously sailing in calmer waters for now, but critics argue that the carriers could face headaches later if they fail to strengthen security solutions. Researchers at the state-run Korea Information Security Agency (KISA) point out that VoIP calls can be easily intercepted by Trojan Horse programs and other malicious software planted in a computer.
In a recent demonstration to the media, KISA researchers downloaded a computer hacking program to a laptop computer and then logged on to the network. This enabled the laptop to intercept and record the VoIP calls made within the office and store them as voice files.
For VoIP to become ubiquitous like traditional telephone services, the industry must find ways to address the security problems, experts say.
``The spread of VoIP services could result in the increase of hacking attacks,'' said Jeong Hyeon-chul, a KISA official.
``You can't intercept the calls made on traditional phones unless you tap the wires or install the wiretapping programs on the phones themselves. However, a basic knowledge of the network is all you need in intercepting VoIP calls in a common office environment,'' he added.