The present invention provides a
system, method and apparatus for providing
network level and
nodal level
vulnerability protection in VoIP networks by receiving a communication, filtering the received communication using three or more stages selected from the group comprising a media protection and filtering plane, a policy based filtering plane, a signature based filtering plane, a protocol
anomaly detection and filtering plane and a behavioral
learning based filtering plane, and either allowing or denying the received communication based the filtering step. The stages are applicable to one or more protocols including SIP, IMS, UMA, H.248, H.323, RTP, CSTA /
XML or a combination thereof. In addition, the stages can be implemented within a single device or are distributed across a network (e.g., SIP network, a UMA network, an IMS network or a combination thereof).