Reef Point Systems is using the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain to introduce enhanced security for service providers using IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) protocol across both wireless and wireline networks.

The new Reef Point Multiservice Security Gateway (MSG) covers next-gen networking standards that include 3GPP, 3GPP2, ETSI TISPAN and PacketCable. The new technology directly addresses a whole new set of security threats being created by IMS' potential to blend the Internet and traditional wireline and wireless voice networks.

"Any time you're talking about opening up networks to highly standardized architecture like IP, you're yourself up to the potential security threats that you see on the Internet today with regard to denial of service attacks and those sorts of things," said Brian Partridge, a senior analyst with The Yankee Group. "As we move down the path to standard IP networks, the
potential for trouble increases."

Both Partridge and Cam Cullen, Reef Point's vice president of product management, agreed that the IMS specification does address many, but not all, security issues.

"We're taking the security and pushing it to the edge of the IMS network and shielding the core elements from having to deal with media traffic or malicious traffic that could introduce security or availability problems for that IMS infrastructure," Cullen said.

The primary focus, as evidenced by the technology's introduction at 3GSM, is the wireless carrier, who probably only has only "a very simple firewall protecting traffic going out of their network."

When that traffic enters the Internet - as IMS proposes - it becomes much more vulnerable to attack.

"You have to make sure that you have the right pieces in place, the right types of policies in place," said Partridge. "It (security) shouldn't be anything that stops anyone from rolling out services; it's more about understanding that there are a new myriad of threats."

Reef Point, as a smaller operator, has laser focused on this area, much to its benefit, Partridge said.

"It seems that for the larger equipment providers this technology has flown under the radar enough where Reef Point is going to be able to carve out a niche for itself," he said.

Even so, Cullen pointed to Reef Point's relationship with Kineto in UMA security and an OEM relationship with Alcatel that uses Reef Point's IMS and UMA security.

"This isn't just a Reef Point project where we're working on this alone and trying to sell this, this is going through large partners who are now offering our solution to their carrier customers," he said.