Cloud Security: 5 Ways Hosted PBX Can Help

CloudCow Contributed Article.  Author: Sheldon Smith – Senior Project Manager, XO Communications.

Security in the cloud remains a top concern for businesses — according to a recent ITWire article, worldwide IT security spending will reach more than $71 billion this year and top $76 billion in 2015. And what’s driving these security concerns? Research firm Gartner describes a “nexus of force” made up of social, mobile and cloud (SoMoCo) solutions.

Used in concert, these technologies offer huge market advantages, but open up unique new vulnerabilities. One option to manage cloud security is a hosted PBX system, which supplants a traditional telecommunications company to supply all incoming and outgoing phone services. Here are five ways hosted PBX can help secure your cloud.


Encryption

As noted by an August 12 article from Business Spectator, there’s often an assumption that devices connected to a corporate network offer inherently secure communication. For example, many users assume that calls from mobile phones across public telephone lines are encrypted, but in fact that’s only true for the “radio” portion of these devices. A hosted or cloud-based PBX system can offer end-to-end encryption within corporate networks and also outside these networks so long as they’re connected with other PBX or VoIP systems that support encryption algorithms.
 
Access

Another major cloud security concern is access. When any user can spin up compute resources or troubleshoot their own IT issues, the possibility of a network breach goes up. Employees may inadvertently download malware-laden applications or make calls to insecure landlines. Hosted PBX systems can limit this risk by offering granular control over Web-portal functions and international calling features. By enabling Web-portal access on a per-user basis, you can ensure high level functions are never changed by accident, while international calls can be limited by phone line extension or total spend per month. This kind of access control means improved cloud security but without seeming intrusive or overbearing — users can still easily complete tasks and leverage cloud-based systems but their ability to expose the company to risk is severely limited.

Monitoring

Of course, no cloud is perfect — eventually, companies need to face security concerns head-on. Here, the monitoring and tracking features of hosted PBX are ideal. Calls can be monitored not only to ensure consumer satisfaction but also provide support to new staff members during calls, in turn helping to avoid security missteps. Tracking phone usage by date, call type or staff extension numbers means if a problem does arise it’s easy to find the source and limit the potential breach. In addition, admins can disable phone extensions as needed, for example, if an employee leaves the company but still has calls routed to their mobile device.

Recording

Compliance is also a significant driver of cloud security solutions. How is data being handled, who can access it and can it be replicated on demand? As discussed by a recent Cloud Tweaks article, cloud-based PBX systems allow you to record all incoming and outgoing calls and then store them securely. As needed, these archived calls can be brought up for review or to demonstrate to federal agencies that your company is properly handling personal data. Taking this a step further are PBX-based analytics systems, which leverage the cloud to provide real-time metrics about call volumes, phone use and access.
 
Time

Perhaps the largest cloud security benefit of a PBX system is time. When invoices and faxes are delivered electronically, access is easily monitored and phone system uptime is guaranteed by a robust service-level agreement, local IT admins have more time to spend securing your company’s technology assets. Traditional telecomms solutions or piece-meal hosted offerings that don’t support mobile or VoIP mean IT are constantly struggling against both users and technology to deliver a secure, unified experience. In many cases, C-suite executives may be willing to trade some security for greater ease-of-access — right up until the first big breach. Hosted PBX platforms can quickly unify all communications across an enterprise, meaning there’s one less insecure access point.

Worried about security in the cloud? You’re not alone. But there’s a simple way to help limit security risk: hosted PBX. With easy encryption, granular access control, monitoring and recording, it’s possible to enhance network safety while simultaneously empowering local IT.

##

About the Author

Sheldon Smith is the Senior Product Manager at XO Communications. XO Communications is the leading nationwide provider of telecommunication solutions specializing in cloud and unified communications services. Sheldon has great experience working in the unified communications industry and in his current role at XO, he has overall product ownership of Hosted PBX and Conferencing.