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Electronic Fax Security
In today's fast moving Internet economy, protecting your network from malicious hacker attacks, viruses, worms, or fraud has become a serious requirement and not just a concern. Your world never stops - neither should your vigilance against attack. Connecting the Imecom DM Fax Server to a network can save you time and money in terms of reduced labor costs and improved productivity. However, IT professionals may be concerned that someone might infiltrate the network through their DM Fax Server. In addition, as companies migrate their voice and data networks to IP, IT administrators may also be concerned about the additional risk of security breaches.
Security of a "Fax Only" Enterprise Fax Server
Unlike other alternative fax solutions that use dual-purpose fax and data modems, the Imecom DM Fax Server uses only Brooktrout intelligent fax boards. These are single purpose fax boards that transmit information only via the T.30 and T.38 "fax only" protocols. For IT administrators, this translates to zero added security risk from the Imecom DM Fax Server system.
What is T.30 and T.38?
T.30 is a fax handshake protocol that describes the overall procedure for establishing and managing communication between two fax devices. Because the Imecom DM Fax Server utilizes Brooktrout intelligent fax boards, trying to hack into a network is like trying to hack into a fax machine. T.30 does not allow for the processing of data or the transmission of data, but rather only allows for the transfer of fax images (known as T.4 and T.6 images).
T.38 is an IP-based protocol that closely inter-works with T.30 to enable the same fax procedures over IP (internet protocol) in real-time. T.38 only handles images. It does not handle files that could potentially contain viruses, worms or Trojans. Furthermore, T.38 only handles image data that is not executable.
Intelligent Fax Boards vs. Fax/Data Modems
In DM Fax Server configurations that include a Brooktrout fax board, the board interprets the content of the data that was sent to it, either over the PSTN or over the IP network, prior to DM Fax Server passing it on to the network. This interpretation means that malicious code cannot pass through it in any way. If it's not a valid T.30 message, it gets dropped. If it's in the image data, the error handling that is done during image decoding will throw it out.
On the other hand, alternative fax server solutions that support inexpensive, simple data modems can expose your network to attacks. Data modems that support both the V.90 and V.92 protocols, which are 56Kbps data transfer standards and have data exchange capability, are merely transport devices that do not interpret the data packets they are carrying. This means that when a data modem is connected to the network, it's just like having an IP connection to the computer network. The fact that a data modem allows the transfer of data, and not just fax images, makes a network very susceptible to security breaches by would be hackers, viruses, worms and Trojans. It is very important to consider this when making your decision on a fax server.
