CyberLogic Blog
Product review: Switchvox PBX appliance
Posted: July 22nd, 2011 by Rafique Railoun
Despite the benefits of VoIP, such as versatility, mobility and potential savings on call costs, many companies still opt for traditional analogue PBX systems which offer limited, if any, VoIP support. Indeed, many of the PBX vendors are still punting analogue systems just because it’s what they know. However, the benefits of VoIP are significant, and they can be realised without breaking the bank.
This is where the Switchvox product range comes into the picture. Developed by Digium, the sponsors of the Asterisk PBX project, the Switchvox range caters for every size of business. There are three products in the Switchvox range. The entry-level unit, the Switchvox 65, is a desktop or wall mounted unit which is designed for up the 30 users. The mid-level model the Switchvox 305, is ideal for up to 150 users and can be desktop mounted or rack mounted. Lastly, the enterprise product, the Switchvox 355, serves up to 400 users and is designed to be rack-mounted.
The Switchvox Range
Each of these three units can be bought with an optional “cold standby” unit for extra peace of mind and, of course, they support any kind of telephony interface you could want, from analogue interfaces to ISDN interfaces. In our environment we use SNOM 300 handsets on our desks and a Quintum/Net Tenor SIP gateway for our BRI lines, and the Switchvox unit worked seamlessly with all of these products.
The three Switchvox models offer essentially the same feature set, and a very impressive feature set at that. Being the sponsors of the Asterisk project, it’s no surprise that Digium have developed the Switchvox on Asterisk-based code. That means that you get all the features that come with Asterisk, such as:
- Call conferencing
- Call recording
- Voicemail
- Music on hold
- Call queues
- Ring groups
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menus
- Day/night features
- Etc.
However, there is a lot more to the Switchvox product than a standard Asterisk install…
The feature that made this PBX stand out in our eyes was the fact that it has an iPhone app! That’s right – using the custom Switchvox app, you can access the PBX via the Internet, and do anything you could do from your land line at the office. The app allows you to do the more mundane tasks, such as check your voicemail, etc. but what makes it so great is that you can place and receive calls to/from your iPhone, via the PBX, all over VoIP. This saves you a lot of money on your cellular bill of course, and the person receiving the call can’t tell the difference; even the caller ID shows your office number. It take mobility to a whole new level.
Another of our favorite features is the ”converged phones” feature, which allows a user’s calls to be routed to them, wherever they are (even if they don’t have the iPhone app, for example). Using a simple web interface, the user can set up their mobile phone and link it to their landline number so that calls can be routed to them when they are out of the office, according to their own preferences. This gives each user the ability to configure and manage their own telephony as they see fit.
Another crowd-pleaser is the web-based switchboard interface, which offers all the functionality of a traditional switchboard telephone and a lot more. For example, each user can configure their own call features, voicemail and fax settings, call reports, and more. They can also access their own customisable switchboard interface, should they wish. And the list goes on… it really is a very feature-rich PBX system.
So, given all the listed features, how did our own testing of the Switchvox unit pan out?
Well, to start off with, our own test of the Switchvox unit was arranged by Miro Distribution, the local importers of the Digium product range. They kindly offered us the use of one of their demo units for testing purposes and the minute we got our hands on it we couldn’t resist playing with the rich feature set. In fact, within hours of receiving the unit we had decided that a quick demo wasn’t enough – it needed to be properly tested, in a live environment!
With that in mind, we disconnected our own PBX and dropped in the Switchvox unit in its place. We had no hassles at all getting the system to work with our own SNOM phones and our SIP/BRI gateway, and ever since then we have been running on the Switchvox loan unit. We use five separate IVR menus, each with a number of different options based on caller ID, time of day, call queue status, etc. and we had no trouble whatsoever with getting the Switchvox to do exactly what we wanted. The configuration is as simple as it can be, given the number of features it offers, and we found ourselves adding in a few extra caller options, just because it was so easy.
Our verdict on the Switchvox PBX is that it has to be the coolest PBX we’ve seen. It truly offers a great feature set, and for a reasonable price at that. Putting aside the cost savings that can be achieved by utilising VoIP, this system is worth investing in just for its feature set. If you’re in the market for a PBX any time soon, be sure to find out about the Switchvox product range!
The only trouble now is that we probably should give this demo unit back…
How to secure your Wi-Fi network
Posted: July 12th, 2011 by Elizabeth van Deventer
Remember the days when having Internet connectivity at home simply required a telephone cable and a dial up modem? Remember how there were no worries or concerns about people using your Internet bandwidth without you knowing? Those were the days indeed. But in the ever changing world of technology, it was inevitable that things would evolve.
These days it’s common practice to have a wireless router which allows you to access the Internet from anywhere in your house, using your cellphone, notebook or tablet computer. Oh the convenience of it all… But wait… There is indeed a catch. The trouble is that, unless your wireless network is secured, anyone passing by your building, or parked out on the pavement, can access that same wireless access point and use your Internet bandwidth, leaving you to foot the bill.
This is where the basic principles of Wireless Network Security come into play. Let us take a brief look at how Wi-Fi security has evolved over the years.
In the olden days, WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) was established as the industry standard to protect and encrypt your Wi-Fi connection. WEP used an encryption key of either 64 bits or 128 bits in HEX to secure the connection between your computer and the Wi-Fi access point. This was sufficient at the time, but over time a number of applications were developed which allow even non-technical users to breech a WEP-secured wireless network with relative ease. These days, using WEP can be compared to leaving your key in the front door of your house. Recent tests by the FBI, using tools freely available on the Internet, proved that it is possible to break into a WEP-encrypted network in less than 3 minutes.
Following WEP, a new technology was developed, namely WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access). This was a giant leap forward in security. What made WPA better than WEP was the fact that WPA used a Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP), which changed keys with every data packet. This made it almost impossible for someone to crack the encryption key. Attempting to decipher a WPA key via a so-called “brute force” attack could take up to 80 years for even the most advanced hacker. So if you have to choose between WEP and WPA for your Wi-Fi security, you’re better off using WPA.
Of course, it didn’t take long for things to move on, and pretty soon the WPA2 protocol was introduced. WPA2 is based on the Robust Security Network (RSN) mechanism and works in the same way as WPA, with some added enhancements which all sound very fancy. These include stronger encryption and authentication support, support for opportunistic key caching, support for the CCMP (Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code Protocol) and an encryption mechanism based on the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cipher, as an alternative to the TKIP protocol. What does this all mean? Well, in plain English, WPA2 is more secure than WPA. Enough said!
With all the extra additions, WPA2 has now become the industry standard when it comes to Wi-Fi Security. If your equipment supports it, use WPA2 on your Wi-Fi network for the best security. Failing that, WPA is your best option.
Apart from using WPA2 or WPA, other tips to secure your home network are:
- Always change the default administrator password when installing a new wireless router
- Always use a random passkey instead of a dictionary word
- Change your passkey from time to time – especially if other people have had access to your Wi-Fi router
- If you’d like to go a step further, you can choose to disable the SSID broadcasting on your router
- For even tighter security you can enable MAC filtering on your Wi-Fi router, but beware: this requires you to add any new devices to the router before they will work.
Keep in mind that, with the rapid advance in technology, no system will be 100% secure indefinitely. However, following the above steps will surely keep unwanted visitors off of your Wi-Fi network for the foreseeable future.
Happy WiFi-ing!
Lock that phone! Mobile security 101
Posted: July 5th, 2011 by Edge Bisset
Modern communications devices, such as smart phones and tablet computers, have made the mobile workforce a reality in the last few years. The travelling salesman of old used to fax his sales numbers to head office once a week; now he can upload that data straight to the company server, in real time. The mobile executives who used to have to phone in for daily reports can now pull that information straight from the company extranet, whether they are at home or in another country. And everything, from financial reports to confidential salary information, is sent via email to the directors, who receive it on their mobile phones.
Information is more accessible than ever before, and in the modern economy, information is power. It’s what gives one company a competitive advantage over another. The pace of business, and of life in general, is accelerating rapidly, and being able to access the right information, on demand, from anywhere in the world, enables us to compete and to stay relevant in this modern economy. However, while enhanced mobility has tremendous benefits, it also presents a number of new challenges to the IT security professional.
For many years, IT security was focussed largely on perimeter security, which was enforced by the corporate firewalls. These devices provided a physical barrier between the company network and the outside world. Wireless networking complicated matters to some extent, by extending the boundaries of the company network beyond the walls of the corporate office, but that could be managed with suitable encryption and authentication. Provided the physical location was well secured and provided you had a decent firewall in place, you probably had a fighting chance at protecting your data from threats outside the network.
Things have changed, however. While it’s still imperative to have good perimeter security in place, mobile computing introduces new challenges which have to be dealt with in different ways. That is because it takes the company data off of the servers, which are locked away in secure environments, and on to these tiny mobile devices, which travel wherever the users go. Now the directors’ email, which typically includes some of the most sensitive information on the corporate network, can be found lying around in coffee shops and restaurants, at conference centers and at homes – all packaged in an easy-to-lose mobile phone or tablet.
So, why is this a problem now? We’ve been travelling with notebook computers for years, right? Well, until recently, the mobile worker was restricted to a notebook device, which was controlled by the company’s security policies. It typically ran some version of the Microsoft Windows Operating System, which was hooked into the company domain. This meant that it was subject to the corporate domain policies, which would enforce the standard password complexity requirements, etc. In addition, the notebook hard drive would be encrypted. So, in the event of the notebook device being lost or stolen, the data on the hard drive would be secure.
However, the new generation of mobile devices seldom have the same security controls. Many mobile phone users don’t use a password at all; those that do so tend to use a basic 4-digit PIN which provides minimal security. And many of these devices aren’t encrypted, so anyone can access the data on the device by hooking it up to a computer. This means that some of the most sensitive information on the network can be accessed by anyone who gets his hands on the right mobile phone.
So what can be done about this? Well, it’s clear that the corporate security policy needs to be extended to cover mobile phones. Password complexity requirements must be applied, data must be encrypted, remote wipe features must be enabled, etc. There are a variety of products available that address these needs, to varying degrees. Your IT Support provider should be able to guide you in this regard. If your company doesn’t enforce mobile security, it’s up to you to do so on your own mobile device. Here are some tips for securing your smart phone or tablet:
- Choose the right device. Some phones can be secured more effectively than others – for example, the BlackBerry range as well as the Apple iPhone and iPad both support data encryption by default, whereas many other mobile devices do not.
- Use a strong password (a combination of upper-case and lowercase characters, along with numbers and special characters, is recommended).
- Set your device to auto-lock after a short interval, and make a habit of locking it whenever you put it down.
- Enable auto-wipe if an incorrect password is entered a certain number of times. On the Apple iPhone and iPad, for example, there is an option for the device to auto-wipe after 10 incorrect password entries.
- If you use your mobile device for connecting to the corporate network via VPN, set it to not remember your passwords. Do the same for any web sites that you log on to.
- Lastly, install some kind of remote wipe software on your device, so that you can remotely delete your data if the device is lost. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), Apple’s MobileMe and Microsoft Exchange all offer remote wipe functionality, for example.
IT security is evolving daily, and new technologies will certainly be introduced to curb the threats inherent in mobile computing, but one thing is clear: data security is no longer the concern of the IT professional alone. Each and every user on the network has to be responsible for the devices he or she uses, as well as for the data on those devices. Applying the policies mentioned above to your mobile device will go a long way toward protecting your sensitive data.
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