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Having port 5223 to work in a normal way poses no security risks. I assume you didn't literally mean open your firewall, because that defeats the whole purpose of a firewall. Just set it up default to allow nothing in. But since port 5223 is initiated by the phone itself, it poses no extra risks. You blocked the outgoing 5223 traffic, and thereby all PUSH notifications. I'd guess it's pretty annoying for the users. Just block the whatsapp calls one by one. (or did you mean, the sales dept actually want to have those calls, except management/IT doesn't want it?)
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Having port 5223 to work in a normal way poses no security risks. I assume you didn't literally mean open your firewall, because that defeats the whole purpose of a firewall. Just set it up default to allow nothing in. But since port 5223 is initiated by the phone itself, it poses no extra risks. You blocked the outgoing 5223 traffic, and thereby all PUSH notifications. I'd guess it's pretty annoying for the users. Just block the whatsapp calls one by one. (or did you mean, the sales dept actually want to have those calls, except management/IT doesn't want it?)

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yes, of course I only wanted to open 5223 for outgoing traffic. Not sure that I understand your last sentence.
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yes, of course I only wanted to open 5223 for outgoing traffic. Not sure that I understand your last sentence.

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Hi joosgilops<br />
<br />
Dat link will explain you all the risk when you open your fire wall :<br />
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<br />
<a href="http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/risks-allowing-programs-through-firewall#1TC=windows-7" rel="ugc">http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/risks-allowing-programs-through-firewall#1TC=windows-7</a>
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Hi joosgilops

Dat link will explain you all the risk when you open your fire wall :


http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/risks-allowing-programs-through-firewall#1TC=windows-7 [http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/risks-allowing-programs-through-firewall#1TC=windows-7]

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My sales colleagues receive lately a lot of whatsapp voice calls from customers on their mobile devices connected to our office wifi network. Till now we are blocking port 5223 which seems to block this and other voice apps. Is it safe to open our firewall? Are there any known security risks?
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My sales colleagues receive lately a lot of whatsapp voice calls from customers on their mobile devices connected to our office wifi network. Till now we are blocking port 5223 which seems to block this and other voice apps. Is it safe to open our firewall? Are there any known security risks?

Whatsapp voice app

A smartphone or smart phone is a mobile phone with an advanced mobile operating system that combines features of a personal computer operating system with other features useful for mobile or handheld use. They typically combine the features of a cell phone with those of other popular mobile devices, such as personal digital assistant (PDA), media player and GPS navigation unit. Most smartphones can access the Internet, have a touchscreen user interface, can run third-party apps, music players and are camera phones. Most Smartphones produced from 2012 onwards also have high-speed mobile broadband 4G LTE internet, motion sensors, and mobile payment mechanisms.

Smartphones

The iPhone is a smartphone made by Apple Inc. It and the iPad, along with several other mobile devices from Apple, run on the iOS operating system, which has its own topic, as does the iPad for device-specific questions. Native iOS applications are written in Objective-C or in Swift using the Cocoa Touch frameworks or HTML5 compiled with the help of a package manager such as Adobe PhoneGap; a common IDE is Xcode.

iPhone

Wireless networking is anything related to the transfer of data between two (or more) devices without the use of a physical connection, ranging from getting advice on a new Bluetooth headset to configuring sophisticated enterprise level networks.

Wireless Networking

Instant messaging (IM) is a type of online chat that offers real-time text transmission over the Internet. A LAN messenger operates in a similar way over a local area network. More advanced instant messaging can add file transfer, clickable hyperlinks, Voice over IP, or video chat. Non-IM types of chat include multicast transmission, usually referred to as "chat rooms". Depending on the IM protocol, the technical architecture can be peer-to-peer (direct point-to-point transmission) or client-server (a central server retransmits messages from the sender to the communication device).