As IT managers look for ways to thwart voice fraud and other types of malicious activity, Cisco announced the Cisco UC Gateway Services API, a Web-based API that could play a direct role in helping organizations deal with this problem. The API opens up the enterprise voice network edge to enable more voice services on the Cisco Integrated Services Router Generation 2 (ISR G2) router.

The Cisco UC Gateway Services API gives customers and partners easy access to call information—both signaling and media—at the network edge. This information can be used to detect and thwart malicious activity, including but not limited to: social engineering and identity-theft scams, contact center account takeover fraud, unauthorized network access and service use, and even the telephony denial of service (TDOS) attacks that are often launched to divert attention while cyber-thieves drain bank accounts of cash or steal customer data from contact centers.

Once malicious activity is detected, the Cisco UC Gateway Services API allows applications to apply appropriate policy action by the Cisco voice gateway, such as call termination, call redirection or call forking (for recording).

The Cisco UC Gateway Services API is supported on the Cisco ISR G2 with the Cisco Unified Border Element (CUBE) for SIP trunks and Cisco TDM Gateways for TDM trunks, both of which provide voice connectivity to the service provider. The services enabled by this API can be extended across all voice gateways throughout the enterprise on a global basis to achieve dramatic improvement in control of the edge of the voice network no matter what technology the enterprise uses for voice connectivity.

The information made accessible by the Cisco UC Gateway Services API can also be used in non-security-related cases, such as to ensure regulatory compliance via call recording and improve business operations with employee or departmental productivity and efficiency reports showing call volumes, durations, and other details.

Jeff Schmidt, global head of business continuity, security & governance, BT Global Services, said: "With Cisco and SecureLogix, BT can provide the industry's first enterprise-wide security solution for both data and voice, which includes TDM and SIP trunking, integrated onto a single platform - the Cisco ISR G2. Our customers now have a single view of their network that allows them to proactively identify threats and dynamically control the network to prevent attacks."