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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 application programming interface (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).
This advancement is important as global telecom fraud losses are estimated to be $40 billion annually, according to the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA) Telecom 2011 survey.
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. Therefore, 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.
Key Highlights:
BT is the first service provider to take advantage of the Cisco UC Gateway Services API by significantly bolstering its BT Assure Cloud Security Service, which until this point has focused mainly on data security services. Now, BT customers will be able to identify threats for voice and data globally in a single dashboard and mitigate these threats proactively. BT will be the only provider to offer a single view based on its ability to monitor and control real-time data and voice activity from the most widely used edge router in the industry, the Cisco ISR G2.
The BT solution also uses the voice policy and security applications of SecureLogix. SecureLogix is the first Cisco technology development partner to integrate its applications with the Cisco voice gateways using this new API and deliver a complete solution to help both service providers (like BT) and enterprises achieve a new level of visibility and control of their voice traffic over the network.
Cisco enables these additional services without requiring additional devices at the network edge. Third-party applications using the Cisco UC Gateway Services API can be run directly on the Cisco ISR G2 using the Cisco UCS Express server blade built for the router chassis, or can be accessed via the cloud.
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.
Cisco is also using the Cisco UC Gateway Services API to better integrate its own products into the Cisco TDM Gateway and CUBE. For example, via the Cisco UC Gateway Services API, Cisco MediaSense can now dynamically select and record specific calls, which is useful in contact centers for quality monitoring purposes.
