SBIR Phase I: A Robust Caller-ID Alternative for Securing Telephony Based Transactions

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段研究项目将探索能够在不影响用户体验的情况下改善融合电话基础设施信任的技术。电话一直被视为一种可信的通信媒介，通过电话进行的各种交易都依赖于这种信任。例如，为了打击信用卡和其他金融欺诈，银行依靠他们通过电话与客户进行安全通信的能力。不幸的是，虽然传统电话与蜂窝和IP网络的融合提供了许多好处，但它也带来了额外的安全威胁。诸如呼叫者标识符之类的呼叫元数据现在很容易被操纵，包括语音网络钓鱼在内的攻击已经给银行造成了经济损失。本研究项目的智力价值在于证明了电话呼叫中的源和中介网络在音频中引入了可用于唯一识别其源的伪影。该项目将研究捕获关键呼叫工件的功能，并将机器学习技术应用于指纹呼叫源。一个关键目标将是在实际部署中出现的规模上验证初步结果。该项目的更广泛影响将来自于开发一种安全的呼叫者id替代方案，该方案既适用于企业设置，也适用于消费者端。由于所提出的方法仅依赖于对接收端的音频进行分析，因此不需要对电话基础设施进行任何更改。这是特别有利的，不仅因为这种基础设施的复杂性和多样性，而且还因为与加密解决方案不同，调用的两端都不需要参与流程。电话无处不在的特性以及对这种媒介的信任可能受到侵蚀，将对企业和公民产生严重后果。这个项目的成功将有助于维持这种信任，因此它将产生广泛的商业和社会影响。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I research project will explore technologies that will enable an improvement in trust in the converged telephony infrastructure without negatively impacting user experience. Telephony has long been viewed as a trusted communications medium and a variety of transactions conducted over the telephone depend on such trust. For example, to combat credit card and other financial fraud, banks rely on their ability to securely communicate with their customers via the phone. Unfortunately, while the convergence of traditional telephony with cellular and IP networks offers many benefits, it has opened it to additional security threats. Call metadata such as caller identifier can now be easily manipulated and attacks including voice phishing have already resulted in financial losses for banks. The intellectual merit of this research project lies in demonstrating that the source and intermediary networks in a phone call introduce artifacts in the audio that can be used to uniquely identify its source. The project will investigate features that capture key call artifacts and apply machine learning techniques to fingerprint call sources. A key goal will be the validation of the preliminary results at the scale that will arise in real-world deployments.The broader impact of the project will come from the development of a secure Caller-ID alternative with applicability both in the enterprise setting as well as at the consumer end. Because the proposed approach only relies on analysis of audio at the receiving end, it requires no changes to be made to the telephony infrastructure. This is especially advantageous not only because of the complex and diverse nature of this infrastructure, but also because unlike a cryptographic solution both ends of a call do not need to participate in the process. The ubiquitous nature of the telephone and possible erosion of trust in this medium will have serious consequences for both businesses and citizens. The success of this project will help maintain this trust and thus it will have broad commercial and societal impact.