Patent ID: 8201236
Filing Date: 2012-06-12
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: preventing, by a firewall including an integrated intelligent network protocol gateway, interposed between an internal network and an external network, unauthorized network-layer access by hosts associated with the external network to a plurality of internal hosts associated with the internal network by performing network address translation (NAT) processing of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses associated with the plurality of internal hosts; protecting, by the firewall, the plurality of internal hosts against application-layer threats from the external network and supporting Voice over IP (VoIP) services without compromising internal network security by actively processing signaling protocols associated with VoIP sessions, including facilitating concurrent management by the firewall of a plurality of incoming VoIP calls by receiving, by the external VoIP interface, a plurality of incoming VoIP packets each of which contains therein a user alias and a port indication regarding one of the plurality of VoIP ports; and causing each received incoming VoIP packet of the plurality of received incoming VoIP packets to be directed to an appropriate internal host of the plurality of internal hosts by port forwarding, by the firewall, the received incoming VoIP packet based on the port indication contained therein to a server or gatekeeper within the internal network that maintains a mapping of user aliases to private addresses of the plurality of internal hosts.