Patent ID: 7809126

Claim:
An apparatus for shielding a call processing server in an IP telephony network, the apparatus comprising: a network server interposed between a first data network and a second data network, said first data network being an untrusted network, said second data network comprising said call processing server; a proxy server interposed between said first data network and said second data network, said proxy server comprising filtering rules operative to restrict communication from said first data network to said call processing server, wherein said apparatus presents an external IP address to said first data network and an internal IP address to said second data network; said proxy server operative to modify said filtering rules to permit proxied communications to said call processing server from a first device on said first data network after said first device is authenticated by said proxy server, wherein said call processing server uses said internal IP address of said apparatus as an IP address of said first device; and a transport layer security (TLS) front end coupled to said proxy server to provide encryption and decryption of call control and signaling when said apparatus is in a secure mode of operation.