Get ready for SPIT (spam over Internet telephony)

If spam could talk, it would spit. SPIT stands for spam over Internet telephony and could become just as annoying, according to executives from Qovia Inc., which recently filed two patent applications for technology to thwart SPIT.

While few companies currently receive SPIT, that will change. According to a recent IDC survey, enterprise spending on IP telephone systems is increasing in the United States, while spending on data networking products is decreasing. More than 31 percent of respondents already have IP-based private branch exchanges (PBXs) installed, and 12 percent have hosted VoIP (IP Centrex) services, IDC said.

VoIP gives companies the ability to consolidate telephony and networking infrastructures within the enterprise, integrate voice with e-mail and contact-management applications, and banish traditional office phones in favor of softphones that are integrated into desktop or laptop computers, says Richard Tworek, president and CEO of Qovia.

With the many new features of VoIP come new challenges for CSOs, including the eventual threat of spam and viruses, which few enterprise networks are equipped to handle today, says Elizabeth Herrell, a research analyst at Forrester Research Inc.