How common are wide open SIP gateways?

Fri Feb 5 17:33:21 UTC 2010

Heya,

	Has anyone done any research or have any anecdotal numbers related to how common it is to have a SIP gateway sitting out on the Internet with no ACL or authentication? Recently we have noticed a couple of instances where we get abuse complaints from companies who claim that one of our hosting clients 'stole SIP service' from them. This reminds me somewhat of the 'SMTP open relay' days. We obviously take action and shut the offending user down but I can't help but wonder how common this practice is. Usually I just ask the company why their system allows anyone to use their SIP gateway and they usually say something like "We can't predict what IP our users will come in from... etc"

I am just wondering if anyone else has noticed this trend.

-Drew