Monday 29 October 2012

CCNA Security Buzzwords

So I've made a slight detour on the CCNA Wireless, it's been replaced by the CCNA Security, and my aim is before the end of the year!

Here's some buzzwords which I feel like I'll have to know and be able to explain should the needs arise. I'm not going to explain them here because it forces me to remember what each means (rather than just reading it) hopefully fixing them in my brain:

Asset
Vulnerability
Threat - Latent, Realised, Threat Vector / Agent
Risk
Countermeasure - Administrative, Physical, Logical

Classifications:
Governmental - Unclassified, SBU (sensitive but unclassified), Confidential, Secret, Top Secret
Public Sector - Public, Sensitive, Private, Confidential
Criteria - Value, age, replacement cost, usefulness lifetime
Roles - Owner, Custodian (implementation), User

Attack Methods:
Covert Channel
Trust Exploitation
Password Attacks
Botnet
DoS / DDoS

Secure Network Architecture Guidelines:
Rule of least privilege
Defence in Depth
Separation of Duties
Auditing


The 5 stages of the Secure Network Lifecycle are:
Initiation
Acquisition and Development
Implementation
Operations and Maintenance
Disposition

Methods to determine the financial impact:
Qualitative
Quantitative


That'll do for now although I may well add more as time goes on

Cisco Telepresence (Very Much the Basics!)

2 Months between posts! very bad, I'm trying to get back on the blogging bandwagon again so here we go!

Cisco Telepresence is a fantastic thing however it's a tad complicated and you really need to know what you are doing to begin looking at it. Here are a few bits I've picked up along the way, serves as a reasonable crash course in Telepresence:

In any Telepresence deployment there are 4 elements which must be present:
  1. Endpoints
  2. Call Control
  3. Conferencing
  4. Scheduling and Management
End points - The endpoints are the phones, video screens and software clients which the user interfaces when they make a video call

Call Control - This is dependant on what endpoints you choose but essentially the call control sets up and controls / directory. The two options are CUCM (Call/Communications Manager) or Cisco VCS.
CUCM is used for IP Telephony, immersive multi-screen telepresence (TX9000) and standards based endpoints such as the MX200 / MX300. 
VCS is the platform for standards based Telepresence endpoints. VCS Control is the platform for use within an enterprise and VCS Expressway can be used to extend communications to other businesses and remote workers.
The most complete solution would consist of both CUCM and VCS with a SIP trunk between them. 

An interesting product here is the VCS Starter Pack Express which is an introduction package for SMBs interested in Telepresence. Limited funcationality and up to 50 registrations and 25 calls:

Conferencing - This is the conferencing bridge element which allows for multi party calls rather than just point to point.
An interesting product here is the MCU5300 series it is essentially stackable conference MCU resources, so you buy them as you need them:

Scheduling and Management - As implied this is the management and scheduling element and the Cisco product for this is Telepresence Management Suite (TMS):