Telecom Impact Announcement
The following message was sent to Plum Voice clients via email. A copy has been posted below.
2020 and 2021 have both been unprecedented years for a variety of reasons.
One trend that has been emerging is coordinated malicious attacks against vendors that offer
voice services.
What You Should Know
Plum Voice operates within the telecommunications landscape of the United States.
This essentially means that all voice traffic through our services must be routed through
pre-existing networks that integrate with our infrastructure.
Access to these networks is traditionally acquired through partner carriers that leverage systems
of their own to manage call routing and traffic flow.
Arrangements of this nature are typical for the industry and Plum Voice partners with many of
the biggest vendors within the telecom space in order to provide our clients with voice services.
Why Is This Important?
The simplest answer is that issues that affect the largest players in the industry often a
trickle-down effect on all partners that they connect with.
A very simple illustration is the internet going out in a home or work office. Lack of internet
connection may result in an email not being sent out. However, the computer sending out the
email is in no way faulty due to the lack of internet connectivity.
In a similar fashion, vendor-related issues can impact core offerings despite all integral
components working correctly.
The Attacks
At Plum Voice, we’ve been at the frontlines working to ensure consistency and reliability for our
customers. However, we are not immune from some of the industry-shaking events that have
recently occurred.
Bandwidth - The Canary In The Coal Mine
Bandwidth is one of the largest and most reputable partner carriers that is leveraged by the likes
of Google to power aspects of their telephony offering. In September of 2021, a major
distributed denial-of-service attack impacted their entire infrastructure for an extensive period of
time.
It should also be noted that these attacks were highly sophisticated to the point of causing a
wave of outages and intermittent issues.
A DDoS attack is considered an attack that can be carried out but to great devastating effect
with varying degrees of sophistication. In essence, a malicious attacker floods a network with
fake requests which prevents actual users from being able to avail themselves of the intended
resources.
Note the following information which appeared in UC Today
(https://www.uctoday.com/unified-communications/ddos-attacks-are-targeting-voip-providers-ho
w-secure-is-your-business/ ):
“Recently we’ve seen several distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks targeting VoIP
providers, causing voice outages...
One recent victim was US-based Bandwidth.com, which experienced disruption of its
voice and messaging services. Alongside Bandwidth, other critical communications
service providers such as VoIP.ms, Voip Unlimited and Voipfone have been targeted as
part of a “rolling” DDoS attack.”
This information was published on Oct 20, 2021 .
Another news source, The Bibb Voice, published the following
(https://www.bibbvoice.com/2021/09/28/voip-providers-nationwide-targeted-by-ransom-demand
s/ ):
“Bandwidth.com has become the latest victim of distributed denial of service attacks
targeting VoIP providers this month, leading to nationwide voice outages over the past
few days.”
From the same article:
“Earlier this month, VoIP provider VoIP.ms suffered a catastrophic week-long DDoS
attack that took down almost all of their services and portals, leaving their customers
without voice services.”
And lastly:
“Locally consumer and business telephone interruption reports are growing in number.
A survey of internet postings indicates that the problem seems to be spreading to all of
the VOIP providers and is not under control at the present time.”
What’s The Bottom Line?
All players within the telecom space are grappling with outages as a direct consequence of
malicious activity.
Plum Voice has always and is continuing to source the best available vendors for all of our
partnerships.
Current trends indicate that malicious activity is on the rise and we are exploring the most
appropriate options to insulate our customers from both the short and long-term ramifications.
We are staying the course in that regard and are remaining vigilant.
Additional Resources:
https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/voipfone-ddos-attacks-raise-spectre-protection-racket-a-17805
Sincerely,
The Plum Voice Team
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