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6 Facts about ProSys Provisioning

ITSPA recently published a revised version of their recommendations for provisioning security – having been offering our own provisioning service for over 13 years, this is something we know a lot about. In-fact we often work with many of the world’s leading manufacturers and industry regulators to ensure their hardware provisioning capabilities are meeting industry standards and provide a secure provisioning method. But what makes our provisioning different from the rest – here’s 6 facts about ProSys Provisioning.

1. Our provisioning platform is not limited to select vendors or devices, we can provision an array of hardware from a variety of manufacturers – see our full list of provisionable devices here.

2. Our provisioning platform is developed in-house by our development team, they’re experts in the field of secure automatic provisioning.

3. Where possible, we use the recommended protocol, ‘HTTPS with factory installed client certificates’ as outlined in ITSPA’s latest guidelines and we have been doing so for years!

4. We make provisioning simple – our pricing structure is based on your requirements per device, meaning you only pay for what you need.

5. Providing it’s compatible, our provisioning server will accept adoptions, so if you have hardware deployed and registered to another server, we can help you to move it over to ours.

6. Post deployment, you can utilise our Management tool to take care of your provisioned items from the comfort of your own desk – read more about ProSys Management here.

Zero-touch provisioning offers many benefits to ITSP and reseller partners. With just a few details, we can ship hardware direct to your end-user customer ready to work out-of-the-box for next day delivery – saving you both time and money. More details on our provisioning services can be seen here. To see ITSPA’s revised guidelines, download ‘Recommendations for Device Provisioning Security (Version 2)’.

ITSPA updated recommendations for provisioning security

 

 

ITSPA has recently released a new guidance paper surrounding remote provisioning of phones and other SIP devices. This new document shares best common practices among ITSPA members to help ensure their provisioning infrastructure is secure.

ITSPA Chair Eli Katz stated

This is an excellent update to the existing guidance and should be considered a starting point rather than a complete solution. This is just a part of ITSPA’s ongoing work in tackling cyber-crime and fraud as well as driving up best practice within the membership. We must ensure the industry is one step ahead in the security battle.

Download: Recommendations for Device Provisioning Security (Version 2)

For a list of ITSPA Best Current Practice (BCP) documents visit: http://www.itspa.org.uk/members/best-practice-documents/

ProVu Sponsor Channel Leaders Conference

We’re proud to be sponsoring the Channel’s newest event! Join us in London on Tuesday 25th April for the first ever Channel Leaders Conference.

What is Channel Leaders?

Aimed at ICT Reseller Businesses, Channel Leaders is designed to combine practical knowledge with forward thinking strategic advice and discussion on how Channels can remain relevant to their customers both in the short term and in the future.

Throughout the day, you will have the opportunity to attend seminars and panel discussions from respected analysts and commentators – it’s a great opportunity to hear from Channel Leaders!

How can I attend?

Tickets are available through the Channel Leaders website. To save 50% simply get in touch and we will provide you with our exclusive discount code. But hurry, tickets are selling fast!

ITSPA Recommendations for secure deployment of an IP-PBX

 

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ITSPA has recently launched a new best practice paper ‘Recommendations for secure deployment of an IP-PBX’ (Version 3). This new document outlines configuration measures that should be implemented on an IP-PBX installed in a customer’s premises as well as the support that service providers can give to assist in the identification and avoidance of attacks.

The update forms part of ITSPA’s Best Current Practice (BCP) documents. This document follows an in-depth collaboration with members, including a range of service providers, security experts and vendors and forms part of ITSPA’s stream of work to ensure that the industry follow best practice to tackle telecommunications fraud.

For a list of ITSPA Best Current Practice (BCP) documents visit: http://www.itspa.org.uk/members/best-practice-documents/

Snom BBC News story

A story was published on the BBC News website today regarding a vulnerability in snom phones that could allow someone to eavesdrop on you.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35579273

If you read this story earlier today, you should re-read it as it has been substantially edited in the last hour or so.

I would just like to reassure customers that this is not news to either ourselves or snom. It is just a case of setting decent passwords on the phone and using up to date firmware. Devices must be set up correctly to operate in a secure fashion, snom phones actually do more to remind you to do this than any other phone – they have messages on the LCD screens and web interfaces.

Also, ProVu advise customers on security best-practices and we can provision a sensible set of default settings to your IP phones.

Snom publish a best-practices guide here:

http://wiki.snom.com/FAQ/How_do_I_secure_my_phone

The gist of this is to use recent firmware, set a strong HTTP password and leave hidden-tags turned on.

This advice pretty much fits with any SIP phone (indeed, any device you connect to your network).

It’s a shame snom have been singled out here because they do more than many to secure their phones.

Paul.

No snom devices affected by Heartbleed!

Notice supplied by snom UK on 23rd April. The snom development team gives the all-clear: Neither snom 3xx series, snom 7xx series nor snom 8xx devices are vulnerable to the security breach in OpenSSL!

The Heartbleed Bug is a serious vulnerability in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library. This weakness allows stealing the information protected, under normal conditions, by the SSL/TLS encryption used to secure the Internet. SSL/TLS provides communication security and privacy over the Internet for applications such as web, email, instant messaging (IM) and some virtual private networks (VPNs).

The Heartbleed bug allows anyone on the Internet to read the memory of the systems protected by the vulnerable versions of the OpenSSL software. This compromises the secret keys used to identify the service providers and to encrypt the traffic, the names and passwords of the users and the actual content. This allows attackers to eavesdrop on communications, steal data directly from the services and users and to impersonate services and users.

snom UK

Yealink devices are not vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug

This advisory applies to all Yealink products using OpenSSL from version 1.0.1 to 1.01f. Notice supplied by Yealink UK on Weds 23rd June.

Heartbleed is a security bug in the open-source OpenSSL cryptography library, widely used to implement the Internet’s Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. This vulnerability results from a missing bounds check in the handling of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) heartbeat extension.

Through the vulnerability in OpenSSL versions from 1.0.1 to 1.0.1f, an attacker can capture memory from the host 64k at a time. The attacker can therefore possibly capture desired data such as the server’s private key, or a user’s password. This exploit is consistent with CVE: 2014-0160.

We have carefully inspected all versions of our products, and are pleased to announce that Yealink products are not affected by the Heartbleed OpenSSL vulnerability. We will update users if there are any changes in the future.

Yealink UK

Congratulations to all ITSPA awards 2013 winners


Ian, Alison, Moh and Darren having a great day at the ITSPA awards 2013 at the Houses of Parliament.

As proud sponsors of the award category Best Consumer VoIP, ProVu would like to congratulate all the finalist especially the award winners and highly commended entries:

Award Winners:
Best Consumer VoIP: Localphone
Best Business ITSP (Small Enterprise): iNet Telecoms (Voipfone)
Best Business ITSP (Medium Enterprise): Telappliant
Best Business ITSP (Corporate): Ciptex
Best VoIP CPE: Sangoma Technologies – NetBorder Lync Express
Best VoIP Infrastructure: Metaswitch Networks – Perimeta 3.3
Most Innovative VoIP Product/Service: Voxhub – Voxtop Apps Platform
ITSPA Members’ Pick: Mark Spencer for developing Asterisk

Highly Commended:
Best Consumer VoIP: BT
Best Business ITSP (Small Enterprise): VoiceHost
Best Business ITSP (Medium Enterprise): Voxhub
Best Business ITSP (Corporate): Timico
Best VoIP CPE: Grandstream Networks – GXP2200 Enterprise Application Phone for Android
Best VoIP Infrastructure: Genband – GENBAND Web Application Manager (WAM)
Most Innovative VoIP Product/Service: Alcatel-Lucent – OpenTouch Conversation

Panasonic products win awards from TMC in America

Panasonic SIP phones have won several awards from the TMC Labs media outlet in the USA.

First off, the KX-UT670 Android based media phone was given an exceptional innovation award.

Read the full press release on the Panasonic website

More info on the KX-UT670

If that wasn’t enough, the KX-UT248 also won the 2012 Internet Telephony (an industry magazine in the USA, published by TMC) Product of the Year Award.

Read the full article on the TMC website.

More info on the KX-UT248

So well done to Panasonic for making such an impact on their first foray in the SIP phone market.

ProVu have been the distributor for the phones in the UK for most of 2012 and have as usual, developed support for them in our phone provisioning and management systems.