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Welcome to the Cloud/Skype/Lync User Forum  click here for website.  

As many of you know I believe the priorities for any SIP/VoIP implementation must-have 1-security, 2-bandwidth and 3-QoS first, not last.  Click on image on Part 1 of tutorial on SIP security architectures.

Today, we explore the Lync Edge Security Filter designed to provide security protection for Edge server situations which is going to be nearly in every Lync setting.  First, DOS-Denial Of Service begins with a hacker who sends TCP-Transmission Control Protocol SYN-Synchronize message from a friendly site or "spoofed" with internal IP-Internet Protocol Address. If target site is 198.20.0.0, hacker may send 198.20.0.255. In other words, hacker(s) appears to be internal or friendly users.  Target (victim) responds with TCP ACK-SYN ACK-Acknowledgement - SYN-SYNchronize message.  In other words, target (victim) treats hacker as a friendly visitor or internal user. There is typically a 40 second window while the receiver (victim) waits to receive an ACKnowledgement from the sender.  This is a normal TCP process while the receiver waits to begin data transmission.  During this time, up to 8 sessions can be created.  If more than 8 sessions are created, then blockage occurs.  The sending of multiple TCP-SYNchronize messages is often called SYN-Flooding or DOS-Denial Of Service.

The remainder of this tutorial explains the consequences of hacker attacks.  And, in case you don't know what various terms are, here are a few.  Hacker comes from the term hack which is slang that software programmers use to describe writing computer programs.  Cracker comes from safe/vault crackers to break/crack into a vault safe.  White Hat Hacker is a good or trusted programmer and Black Hat is a bad or untrusted disgruntled person whose desire is to cause injury or disrupt computer systems.  Grey Hat is a programmer of uncertain intent.

Our goal is to find applications, solutions, tech, users and other content on Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft Lync, Amazon, Kinect, Twitter, SharePoint & Skype.  We want hear from you about great ideas on the www-wild wild web of internet communications and online cloud, SaaS and other hot tech solutions.  Send your ideas and products anytime.  

The next wave of hack attacks will be against SIP-based systems.  Since Lync is SIP-based, you must-have some protection and highly recommend advanced protection.  Here is one part of the puzzle.  Companies that allow employees to remotely sign in to Microsoft Lync Server 2010 communications software from the Internet can be susceptible to denial-of-service (DoS) (click on graphic for tutorial on DOS) and brute-force attacks. Both types of attacks involve guessing users' passwords or locking out user accounts when too many incorrect password attempts are made to a valid Active Directory Domain Services user account when a password policy is enforced. Although internal security is not compromised, both types of attacks can be disruptive to users and consume internal server resources. To help prevent your organization from such attacks at the network perimeter, the security filter for the Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Edge Server monitors sign-in attempts and enforces account lockout at the network perimeter.

The Security Filter is a server application that inspects all inbound sign-in requests on the Edge Server. The remote user is not authenticated at the Edge Server, so the sign-in request is passed to the director or directly to the internal pool. This is where the authentication process happens. The response is then passed back to the Edge Server. The Security Filter inspects both the request and the response. If the sign-in fails, the Security Filter tracks the number of failed attempts for each user account.

The next time a client attempts to sign in to the same user account, and the number of failed attempts exceeds the maximum number of allowed sign-in attempts, the Security Filter immediately rejects the request without passing the request along for authentication. By enforcing account lockout at the Edge Server, the Security Filter blocks DoS attacks at the edge of the network perimeter and protects internal Lync Server resources.

To uniquely identify the user attempting to authenticate, the security filter reverse engineers the authentication protocols (NTLM v.2 or TLS-DSK) used in Lync Server. In the case of NTLM v.2, the security filter extracts the domain and user name from the GSS data. In the case of TLS-DSK, the security filter extracts the client certificate used to authenticate the user. The security filter uses this unique identifier to track the number of failed login attempts, and blocks any further login attempts regardless of whether the attacker spoofs the user's SIP URI or other identifier to outsmart the security filter.

• Monitors every client login request crossing the Edge Server.
• Uniquely identifies each login request based on domain credentials submitted by client.
• Recognizes different username formats, UPN (rui@maximo.ws), Netbios (maximo\rui), or hybrid (maximo.ws\rui) as the same user account.
• Tracks number of failed login attempts and source.
• Blocks client login requests when the number of failed login attempts exceeds administrator configurable threshold.
• Ability to block NTLM based login requests (Lync Server version only).
• Ability to centrally store failed login information across a bank of Edge Servers into a SQL Server database.
• Provides logging information to Application Event Log (verbose mode available).

I asked more than 15 "Lync Leaders" for their forecast or outlook for Lync in 2012. Due to time constraints and in some cases, reluctance to provide public answers, here is what I received by deadline. We will continue expand this Lync-2012 column in this newsletter and on TelecomReseller's website soon and if you have any comments you would like to see published send them to me here. Before we get to Lync, click on the image to the right for The Street's 10 Tech Predictions for 2012.  Here is what key "Lync Leaders" are saying.  Here's a few new ones:    

  "I think that 2012 will see a lot of changes in the Microsoft Lync marketplace, and I for one am really looking forward to the New Year!  2011 was the year where Lync became a viable replacement for the PBX, and at Gold Systems we saw our deployment business shift from mostly pilots to more full-scale, enterprise-wide planning and deployments of Lync.  The product has gone mainstream and is being taken seriously by our enterprise customers.

The desktop phone of the future: 2012 by Mike Storella, snom COO 

In 2011, snom became the first (and remains the only) vendor to bring to market standards-based SIP desktop phones qualified by Microsoft for use with Lync Server 2010. Today, just as we saw the release of Lync in 2010 as a major milestone in unified communications, we see 2012 as a tremendous opportunity for the desktop phone and Lync.

One of the key reasons for Lync's success thus far, and a substantial reason for future optimism, is Lync's ability to easily integrate into the current communications infrastructure and the easy activation of voice features. Because many of the UC functions within Lync have previously been mastered by Microsoft through other initiatives (Messenger or Sharepoint, for example), Lync's integration and operation is intuitive on existing networking infrastructure, making it relatively easy to install, scale and maintain for our value added resellers (VARS). Adding qualified snom endpoints to a Lync deployment is easy, and we have already seen through our own VARs what a time-saver that can be.  This compatibility is also seen on the endpoint side of the equation. As Lync grows, its compatibility with a multitude of different kinds of endpoints, from best of breed vendors, will ensure that VARs will be willing to sell it to clients, that customers will be willing to work with it, and that vendors will be willing to build and promote products supported by it. While the Lync ecosystem may not become universally interoperable, its ability to attract supportive equipment makers will help it continue to penetrate the marketplace.

But while the growth of Lync in 2012 will help existing VARs and qualified equipment vendors, it also has the potential to spawn new business models that will continue its growth. We are already seeing new ventures spring up using Lync as a cloud-based, hosted communications platform from companies such as Chinook Communications, which uses snom phones in a hosted Lync environment covering telephony and collaboration features.

This is a trend we expect to see much more of as cloud-based business applications continue to become staples of business operations. It has already happened in a variety of business functions, including sales/CRM and data storage, and it is now making its way into business communications.  From our vantage point, the continued proliferation of Lync will also help the transformation taking place surrounding the desktop phone. By combining business applications, collaboration applications and communications media, integrated unified communications platforms are making the desktop endpoint more valuable than ever before. This combination of applications demands a low-cost, always-on device that can effectively incorporate voice applications and act as a dashboard for other collaboration and business functions, and the only device that fits that bill is a feature rich, smartly designed desktop phone. As Lync expands its functionality and features, so will compatible desktop phones.

In 2012, we expect Lync's steady growth to continue to make the desktop phone the most integral part of a unified communications infrastructure, but conversely, we also expect the desktop phone - now the integrated communications dashboard - to help Lync establish itself in the corporate IT infrastructure.

Outlook for Lync in 2012 by Rui Maximo Lync developer
Click here for his website.  - Twitter @rui_maximo
"Before looking forward, it's valuable to see where we've been. The close of the year 2011 invites this exercise of introspection. Outside the hustle and bustle of shopping and preparation, the holidays provides a well-deserved break from our daily busy and crazy at times no doubt work routine.  This break is a good opportunity to reflect on our accomplishments, goals that are still work in progress, and other resolutions that were abandoned because circumstances changed. I certainly enjoy using this time to take stock in how wisely I used up my time. Such introspection is a private exercise, and I invite you to take the time to gaze into how the past year fared for you and your loved ones.  Looking forward, we have 2012, the year of the dragon, when we'll have another opportunity to accomplish the goals we still aspire for, but didn't complete in 2011, and make new ones. Let's face it. Many resolutions are multi-year objectives. As long as we recognize that, this is an opportunity to renew our resolution and drive towards those goals. This is no different for Lync.  So, here are my top 4 outlooks on Lync for 2012.

- Lync for mobile client - Lync clients for Windows Phone 7.5, iPhone, iPad, and Android is finally out, and available a marketplace and app store near you. Lync is finally going mobile! With a client for mobile devices, Lync is finally going portable. This will likely increase the footprint of Lync deployments in enterprises as workers can truly be connected anywhere with a 3G, 4G, or WiFi connection.  

- Video calls - Analysts are claiming that there will be an explosion of video calls as individuals have warmed up to seeing each other in a call. I can recall, probably 5-6 years ago, when analysts were saying that video calls wouldn't take off because people didn't want to be seen. Things sure have changed including me. I've actually warmed up to the idea of it as long as the bandwidth is good enough. Video won't necessarily be used in the majority of calls, but it will continue to grow. My thought is that the industry hasn't put too much thought or energy in creating what I call 'bridging solutions'. For example, instead of streaming video for the entire duration of the call, still snapshots can be taken and transmitted when there's more bandwidth availability.

- Social networking integration - social networking has grown up. Enterprises that use social networking properly use it as a means to build a community around their products. Enterprises that don't understand social networking use it solely as a marketing tool. Enterprises are learning that social networking can also be used inwardly to build social communities within large organizations that self-organize around common interests. These work communities transcend hierarchical boundaries, and can stimulate new ideas into the creation of new innovative products. To harness this creative energy requires communication tools that break down the difficulties in connecting employees with similar interests. The combination of such social networking solutions built-in with Lync, which has broken down the barriers in communication, will be powerful tools for enterprises to harness the creative energy of their employees.

- Skype integration - I look forward to seeing Microsoft fully integrate Skype with Lync.  Although I have no details of what's planned, I would like to see Skype integrated as another public IM connectivity (PIC) service on the Edge Server for IM, voice, video, and application sharing.  The Lync client would provide the ability to sign-in to both your Lync and Skype accounts, and the contacts would automatically be merged, but separated into contact groups into a unified contact list. That's just the obvious points of integration, but much more are possible."      

Norv Leong, Director Product Marketing www.actiance.com 
"There are so many instant messaging (IM) networks these days (Yahoo, Google Talk, MSN/WLM, AOL, Skype, etc.) that it gets ever more challenging for IT security admins to maintain their sanity.  Why, you ask?  Well, most organizations have deployed some kind of unified communications platform, such as Microsoft Lync Server, which likely went through a formal risk assessment and was blessed by IT.

However, with the emergence of Web 2.0 applications (e.g., IM, P2P, etc.) within into the corporate setting, IT professionals are increasingly witnessing a convergence happen, whether they like it or not.  It's pretty much par for the course to see folks accessing public IM networks and social networking sites from their work computers.  What this all means is that the line has become increasingly blurred between the enterprise collaboration tools like Microsoft Lync and what's going on in the Web 2.0 world.  
Of course, with this flood of public IM and P2P applications comes a new set of headaches for IT administrators.  Each one of these IM applications has been introduced into the enterprise by regular folks.  It's Joe/Stephen/Mary the individual that has downloaded Yahoo IM or Skype right onto their machine.  IT didn't do it.  This means there are more vectors for malware and viruses to enter the corporate network.  Or, put another way, IT has less control over what comes and goes over the corporate network.  All it takes is one ill-timed click on a link for a virus to replicate within the network.

This is where granular controls come into play.  Being able to control who can IM with external parties, whether on a global, group, or individual basis, is huge.  Furthermore, it could very well be that an organization has a regulatory duty to separate its business functions or divisions from communicating with one another.  Actiance Vantage enables organizations to control communications such that employees are blocked from contacting anyone (including external users) who might be on a blacklist.

Additionally, Vantage helps organizations maintain compliance with relevant regulatory guidelines or eDiscovery mandates by logging and archiving all Lync content (e.g., IMs, Group Chat, VoIP, Video, and Data Conferencing).  There may be a dizzying array of communications channels these days, but in the eyes of the courts or regulatory bodies, whether it's IM, social media, or email, they're all just considered forms of electronic communication at the end of the day.  That means all these variants of electronic communications must be logged and archived for regulatory, eDiscovery, or corporate purposes.

Thus, it's no wonder that IT professionals are turning to platforms like Actiance Vantage to address all their security and compliance requirements for unified communications and IM.  Vantage sports the industry's deepest set of such features for Microsoft Lync.  From Day Zero worm protection to tamper-proof archiving, Actiance makes sure that enterprises can remain productive without compromising any security or compliance requirements."

----

In conversations with more than a dozen other people over the past few months there is a considerable amount of "grumbling" going on in regard to Lync. In a recent lunch-n-learn one company was interested in Lync-only as they are going with Google apps for their email and office tools. They asked a lot of probing questions and while there was considerable Lync expertise in the room, some of the "pauses" made it very obvious that Lync is "not ready for prime time" for this customer. However, as you can see from the comments above by industry leaders that, indeed, Lync is really ready.  

So where's the gap? It may still fall in the category of "completeness." In this sense, completeness is the vast array of features that are needed to be a complete solution for all kinds of customers rather than a few. Contact center, hotel-motel, hospital, school and other situations require very special needs. Much to the chagrin of even the existing long-term PBX providers, no one-size fits all which is why new "voice apps" emerge every day. In addition, Lync needs a lot of third-party parts to get the "car" on the road. If there is one thing I have heard since Lync was launched (11/17-2010) is that customers want cars, not cars parts. As Dan Aronson, sent me what I first mentioned that, "users want cars to take them on a ride." I hear from a lot of car drivers, mechanics and others and seem all are looking for Microsoft for "leadership in Lync" in 2012. I am out of space, so read more in the online version coming mid-December. 

Our goal is to find applications, solutions, tech, users and other content on Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft Lync, Amazon, Kinect, Twitter, SharePoint & Skype.  We want hear from you about great ideas on the www-wild wild web of internet communications and online cloud, SaaS and other hot tech solutions.  Send your ideas and products anytime.  

Telecom Reseller reaches 37,000 readers every month by print, 1000s daily on line, by eBulletin, by podcast and in special supplements. 24,000 of these readers are IT managers at enterprises and public entities with over 200 employees, while another 12,000 are partners of Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, NEC, Shoretel as well as other channel partners, dealers, systems integrators, agents and VARs that sell directly to both SMBs and larger companies. We can connect you with the people who sell to smaller companies, and to the IT people who handle the internal needs of the larger firms who, on the average, manages over 56 sites.

Here are some exciting new options for fall:

          - Event promotion - use to promote your event, webseminar, road show, quarterly/annual meetings and other activities.

          - Blog promotion - you have a blog so why not really promote it.

          - Webseminar - promotion only or design, development, moderating and promotion.

          - Elite banner advertising on Telecom Reseller home page and others. 

This month and going forward, we are working on special reports on Cloud Based UC Services and Products which will include:

- Hosted and cloud based PBX-VoIP and other call management solutions.

- Cloud based collaboration

- Conferencing, including voice, video and data sharing

- Cloud based data management, security, performance management and other communications

- Private cloud, MPLS and other SIP trunking solutions

Since 1988, Telecom Reseller is the industry standard for UC news, opinion and technical advice. If you are targeting companies that have historically relied on customer premises based equipment or your go to market plan includes dealers, resellers and VARs who sell into this space, Telecom Reseller can connect you with the people you are looking for.   

Click here to receive the Media Kit. 

Simple SIP Guide to SIP Providers

Company: IntelePeer

SIP Solution/Service name: IntelePeer SIP trunking services

Description (30 Word max): IntelePeer's SIP trunking services offer high quality and reliable VoIP connectivity that includes PSTN interconnections, DIDs, local calling, long distance, and toll-free. Try it with our 30-day no cost trial.

Contact: Norman Siow

Contact email: nsiow@intelepeer.com

Company:  Level 3 Communications

SIP Solution/Service name:  SIP Trunking

Description (30 Word max): SIP enabled local and long distance voice service delivered to Enterprise UC and PBX platforms to enable voice communications in medium to large businesses.

Contact:  Jason Brougham

Contact email: jason.brougham@level3.com

Company: EtherSpeak Communications, LLC

SIP Solution/Service Name: EtherSpeak SIP Trunks

Description: SIP Provider for Microsoft, ShoreTel, Zultys and Asterisk UC systems.  Offers IP encryption, faxing, PBX hosting and managed connectivity using existing broadband, encrypted internet, MPLS network, or existing MPLS providers.

Contact: Mark Williams

Contact Email: sales@ietherspeak.com

Company - Global Crossing

SIP Solution/Service name:  SIP Trunking Solutions; Global Crossing VoIP Outbound™, Global Crossing VoIP On-Net Plus™, Global Crossing VoIP Toll Free™ and Global Crossing VoIP Local Service™

Description: Global Crossing's enterprise SIP trunking solution delivers a rich breadth of services with carrier-class quality, reliability and security for maximum savings on overall telephony costs, reducing total cost of ownership.

Contact: James Harney

Contact email: siptrunking@globalcrossing.com

Quick Link to Lync Approved SIP Trunking Providers

If your company is missing, send email to cross@gocross.com