Tag Archive for Cisco

| September 1, 2015
Comments Off on Cisco Loves Apple

Cisco Loves Apple

Cisco Loves AppleApple has announced a new partnership with network giant Cisco. If you believe Fortune, the goal is to sell more iPhones and iPads to business customers. The move is intended to make it easier for businesses to use Cisco products like its video, chat, and web conferencing services on Apple‘s (AAPL) mobile devices. Fortune says that no new products have been announced under the partnership.

New partnership between Apple and CiscoIn fact, this collaboration seems to be a deal looking for a plan. Rowan Trollope, Cisco’s senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s collaboration technology group, told the author that both Cisco (CSCO) and Apple sales teams would soon meet with business leaders at other companies to discuss their technology needs. The conversations are intended to help give Cisco and Apple ideas about the products they will develop together. He also declined to confirm if any Cisco or Apple engineers are engaged or any timeline for when the new products will hit the market.

Even though there are no plans, the Cisco VP claimed that customers will be able to prioritize mobile traffic on their networks so that workers watching YouTube videos on their iPhones won’t hog all of a company’s bandwidth. Apparently, Cisco and Apple engineers will work on updating iOS Apple’s mobile operating system, to prioritize network traffic from Apple devices, which “would be difficult without a joint engineering project,” according to the article.

Prioritization would be a good start, iOS updates have crushed networks in the past. The number of hoops you have to jump through to make AppleTV’s Bonjour work on an enterprise network is stupid. Just proof that Apple is not ready for the enterprise.

TelepresenceCisco has tried to create new product lines outside of its core networking and switching businesses to help boost its sales. Sales of its collaboration products are so stagnant that the firm has resorted to 85% discounts on telepresence gear.

Cisco has a history of buying consumer-orientated businesses like Apple, destroying the business, and then jettisoning the remains. Linksys and Flip Video come to mind.

Apple has also buddied up to IBM (IBM). The plan seems to be to add an IBM markup to overpriced Apple mobile devices. And then sell them to firms that have too much money. The combination has developed pushed-based apps that target specific industries, like healthcare or law enforcement.

rb-

add an IBM markup to overpriced Apple mobile devicesThe fanboyz are drooling over this deal – Apple Will Change the World (again?) – Maybe if they clean up their proprietary non-routable protocols.

It has been a while since Cisco has done something notable. Maybe new CIO Chuck Robbins will shake things up at Cisco now that King Chambers has mostly moved on.

Related articles

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| August 27, 2015
Comments Off on Back to School Cybersafety Resources

Back to School Cybersafety Resources

Back to School Cybersafety ResourcesThe new school year is here. If cybersafety is not on your “back to school” checklist, it should be. SecureWorld offered up a list of resources to help parents have a meaningful conversation about “cyber-safety” with their children. Parents need to talk with their kids about what they can do to protect themselves from the threats that are lurking online.

There are a variety of resources available that can help parents teach their children about the importance of Internet safety and privacy. Here are some recommended in the article.

threats lurking onlineIn 2009, President Obama asked the Department of Homeland Security to create the Stop.Think.Connect. Campaign to help Americans understand the dangers that come with being online. The program stresses that cybersecurity is a shared responsibility. Parents can download a Cybersecurity for Kids tip card (PDF) that offers helpful hints and advice designed specifically for children.

ConnectSafely.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating users of connected technology about safety, privacy and security. The website offers a number of Parent Guides, written by parents for parents, including:

Back to school

The National Cybersecurity Alliance is an industry-led group, founded by the likes of Symantec (SYMC), Cisco (CSCO), Microsoft (MSFT), and EMC (EMC), whose mission is to educate and therefore empower a digital society to use (rb- their products) the Internet safely and securely at home, work and school.

Parents and teachers can download tips and resources from their website StaySafeOnline.org. The tip sheets are created specifically for different age groups ranging from kindergarten to college students. This site offers resources like:

Free Security Check-Up and Tools – Which has download locations for tools from A to W – Avast to Webroot. (as always use at your own risk).

Tip Sheets for:

The author states that industry professionals are also placing a high priority on preparing children for life in cyberspace. For instance, the (ISC)2 Foundation’s Safe and Secure Online program was introduced in 2006 in conjunction with Childnet International. They offer resources for parents which include Top 10 Tips for Parents (PDF) and the Parent-Child Commitment to Safety Agreement (PDF).

The Business Insider polled and a bunch of industry cyber security experts about what they teach their kids about the internet. The experts working in the field recommend you:

  • Start discussing online safety at an early age.
  • If you wouldn’t do it face to face – Don’t do it online.
  • Once you’ve written something you can’t delete it.
  • Not just to tell them the rules but also to spend the time/

You can read the rest of the tips at Business Insider here.

rb-

Good luck, you will need it.

Talk to your students about cyber safety – Staysafe.org’s guide on Internet Safety for Teens: https://www.staysafe.org/teens/

Related articles

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| May 26, 2015
Comments Off on Another Hole in Internet Armor

Another Hole in Internet Armor

Another Hole in Internet ArmorAnother hole in our Internet armor has been discovered. The hole is in the Diffie-Hellman key exchange, a popular cryptographic algorithm that allows Internet protocols to agree on a shared key and negotiate a secure connection. It is fundamental to many protocols including HTTPS, SSH, IPsec, SMTPS, and protocols that rely on TLS.

Diffie-Hellman key exchangeResearchers from the University of Michigan, Inria, Microsoft Research, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Pennsylvania have uncovered several weaknesses in how Diffie-Hellman key exchange has been deployed. In what they are calling the Logjam attack the DF flaw allows a man-in-the-middle attacker to downgrade vulnerable TLS connections to 512-bit export-grade cryptography. This allows the attacker to read and change any data passed over the connection.

The problem, according to the researchers, is that millions of HTTPS, SSH, and VPN servers all use the same prime numbers for Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Practitioners believed this was safe as long as new key exchange messages were generated for every connection. However, the first step in the number field sieve—the most efficient algorithm for breaking a Diffie-Hellman connection—is dependent only on this prime. After this first step, an attacker can quickly break individual connections.

prime numberTo prove this hypothesis, the researchers carried out this computation against the most common 512-bit prime number used for TLS and demonstrated that the Logjam attack can be used to downgrade connections to 80% of TLS servers supporting DHEEXPORT.

They also estimated that an academic team can break a 768-bit prime and that a nation-state can break a 1024-bit prime. Breaking the single, most common 1024-bit prime used by web servers would allow passive eavesdropping on connections to 18% of the Top 1 Million HTTPS domains. A second prime would allow passive decryption of connections to 66% of VPN servers and 26% of SSH servers.

VPN attackThere is speculation that this “flaw” was being exploited by nation-state bad actors. A close reading of published NSA leaks shows that the agency’s attacks on VPNs are consistent with having created, exploited, harnessed the Logjam vulnerability.

What should you do?

1 – Go to the researcher’s website https://weakdh.org/ to see if your browser is secure from the Logjam flaw. (It reported that Google Chrome Version 43.0.2357.81 (64-bit) on OSX 10.10.3 was not secure}

2 – Microsoft (MSFT) patched the Logjam flaw on May 12 with security bulletin MS15-055. A Microsoft spokesperson told eWEEK;

Customers who apply the update, or have automatic updates enabled, will be protected. We encourage all customers to apply the update to help stay protected.

3 – Google (GOOG) fixed the issue with the Chrome 42 update, which debuted on April 15. Google engineer Adam Langley wrote;

We disabled TLS False-Start with Diffie-Hellman (DHE) in Chrome 42, which has been the stable version for many weeks now.

patch for Firefox4 – Mozilla’s patch for Firefox isn’t out yet, but “we expect it to be published in the next few days,” Richard Barnes, cryptographic engineering manager at Mozilla, told eWEEK.

5 – DarkReading reports that on the server-side, organizations such as Apache, Oracle (ORCL), IBM (IBM), Cisco (CSCO), and various hosting providers have been informed of the issue. There has been no response from these tech titans.

The researchers have also provided guidance:

  1. If you have a web or mail server, they recommend  – disable support for export cipher suites and generate a unique 2048-bit Diffie-Hellman group. They have published a Guide to Deploying Diffie-Hellman for TLS with step-by-step instructions.
  2. If you use SSH, you should upgrade both your server and client installations to the most recent version of OpenSSH, which prefers the Elliptic-Curve Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange.
  3. If you’re a sysadmin or developer, make sure any TLS libraries you use are up-to-date, that servers you support use 2048-bit or larger primes, and that clients you maintain reject Diffie-Hellman primes smaller than 1024-bit.

rb-

Finally, get involved. Write someone, your representative, senator, your favorite bureaucrat, the president, your candidate, and tell them to get out of the way. 

Ars Technica notes that Logjam is partly caused by export restrictions put in place by the US government in the 1990s, to allow government agencies the ability to break the encryption used in other countries. “Logjam shows us once again why it’s a terrible idea to deliberately weaken cryptography, as the FBI and some in law enforcement are now calling for,” said Michigan’s J. Alex Halderman to the report. “Today that backdoor is wide open.”

 

Related articles

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| April 16, 2015
Comments Off on Wi-Fi Charges Up Ethernet

Wi-Fi Charges Up Ethernet

Wi-Fi Charges Up EthernetInformation Technology prognosticators Gartner (IT) predicts that 40% of enterprises will use Wi-Fi as the default connection for mobile and non-mobile devices by 2018 according to Fred Donovan at FierceMobileIT. The prediction says that typically fixed location devices like; desktops, desk phones, projectors, and conference rooms will use Wi-Fi as their primary connection replacing Ethernet.

Wi-FI logoGartner says Wi-Fi is facilitating BYOD. The enterprise Wi-Fi network now allows workers to choose any device and move anywhere in the workplace. Gartner argues that the introduction of security measures like 802.1X augmented with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption has lessened IT’s worry about security breaches involving the Wi-Fi infrastructure. Ken Dulaney, V.P. and distinguished analyst at Gartner said;

Ethernet cabling has been the mainstay of business workspace connectivity since the beginning of networking. However, as smartphones, laptops, tablets, and other consumer devices have multiplied, the consumer space has largely converted to a wireless-first world

Facilitating BYOD

As the first connection to the enterprise infrastructure, Wi-Fi brings workers the ability to choose any device and move anywhere without worry. VP Dulaney continued;

WI-FI certifiedAs bring your own device (BYOD) has increased in many organizations, the collision of the business and consumer worlds has changed workers’ demands

Furthermore, cabling systems or even peer-to-peer (P2P) wireless solutions using technologies that offer cable replacement have had to deal with a variety of connectors challenges, such as USB and micro-USB, as video systems move beyond Video Graphics Array (VGA). The market research firm also argues that MACD costs will decrease.

MACD costsAdditions, moves, and changes are costly inconveniences that waste time for enterprise IT organizations. A move can sometimes involve cabling changes that can cost as much as $1,000 … With Wi-Fi printers, desktops, and other devices, all that is required is a cable to the power source, leaving workers free to move themselves making reconfigurations of offices easier.

Because of the many benefits of Wi-FI, Gartner VP Dulaney predicts firms are going to change how they connect;

we expect many organizations to shift to a wireless-by-default and a wired-by-exception model.

New Ethernet specifications

In order to deal with the new wireless-by-default reality, changes are needed on the wired network.  at FierceCIO reports that the vendor community is working to address the Wi-Fi first world. Unfortunately, there are two industry groups pushing their own new Ethernet specifications. Mr. Mah says that new Ethernet standards are needed to work with Wave 2 of 802.11ac wireless access points (AP) with a theoretical maximum throughput of up to 3.5Gbps.

NCaptain Ethernetew standards are needed because the existing Gigabit Ethernet is a bottleneck and current alternatives are not attractive. First, link-aggregating two Gigabit Ethernet connections for each Wi-Fi AP would need additional cabling and more expensive managed switches to support it. Using 10GbE would be overkill. Upgrading to 10GbE is a significant investment that includes new Category 6a or Category 7 cables, more power, and more cabling.

One faction, the MGBase-T Alliance, was formed in June 2014 and includes; Avaya, Aruba Networks (ARUN), and Brocade (BRCD) as well as component vendors Broadcom (BRCM) and Freescale Semiconductor. The other group known as the NBase-T Alliance was formed in October 2014. This faction consists of Cisco (CSCO), Intel, Xilinx (XLNX), Freescale, and Aquantia, a company that’s already making 2.5G/5G components.

Little agreement on standards

At the moment, the only agreement between the two factions is that 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps speeds are needed. The IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee has set up the P802.3bz 2.5/5GBase-T Task Force to address this issue. The 2015 Q1 CommScope Standards Advisor reports that the 802.3bz Ethernet cablescommittee has decided so far that:

  • 2.5 GBase-T option will run on Cat 5e (Class D) 4 pair UTP up to 100M, and
  • 5 GBase-T option will run on Cat 6 (Class E) 4 pair UTP up to 100M.
  • There is no release date yet

The concern, however, is that vendors could jump the gun by shipping pre-standard products ahead of standards rectification, complicating matters and slowing down the development of the pertinent standards.

rb-

Remember 802.11n? Pre-standard products? Given that there is no guarantee that systems built with components from the two groups will work together. Don’t jump the gun – waiting for the standard to solidify before buying into new 2.5G/5G Ethernet networking hardware.

For now, Dell’Oro Group analyst Alan Weckel told FierceCIO is that enterprises will probably be able to buy 2.5G/5G equipment starting in Q2 of 2015. 

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| April 9, 2015
Comments Off on 802.3bt More Power to the People’s Devices

802.3bt More Power to the People’s Devices

802.3bt More Power to the People's DevicesPower over Ethernet (PoE) powers more than one million end devices today. To continue PoE’s success, the IEEE is answering the market’s demands for more power by developing 802.3bt the third generation of PoE.

The first generation of PoE (2003), 802.3af delivered 12.95 Watts. The second generation, 802.3at (2009) provides 25.5 Watts to the equipment. The new version of PoE will address the need for higher-power PoE. The IEEE has proposed a new standard, 802.3bt, which promises to double the power output of the current 802.3at standard. The new 802.3bt standard, scheduled to be released in 2017, will also adjust PoE to work with 10Gbase-T.

IEEE logoCabling Installation & Maintenance Magazine provides an excellent overview of the new standard. They report that the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee which develops and maintains networking standards like Ethernet, VLANs, and Wireless LAN, is developing the new standard. The DTE Power via MDI over 4-Pair Task Force is working to specify a set of next-generation PoE specifications, and the levels of power likely to be delivered ultimately via the 802.3bt standard will still work on twisted-pair cable, possibly as a four-pair PoE specification which could improve energy efficiency and offer greater power.

New POE Applications

IndustryApplicationTypical Power Consumption
HealthcareNurse call system30-50W
RetailPoint of sale system30-60W
BankingIP Turrets45W
Building ManagementVariable air volume controllers, Access controllers40-50W
Enterprise ITThin clients, Virtual desktop terminals50W
HospitalityPOE switches45-60W
Premise SecurityPTZ cameras30-60W
IndustrialBrushless drives, Motor control>30W
VariousDigital signage>30W
VariousMultichannel wireless access points>30W
via CommScope

The new PoE standard will support 10GBase-T. The 10GBase-T standard uses all 4 pairs to send data. These facts will force the IEEE 802.3bt committee to figure out how to keep the power from interfering with the data on the same wires to supply a minimum of 49 watts at the powered device. One of the key parameters the article mentions is to limit pair-to-pair current imbalance.

POE logoOther goals for the 802.3bt standard are: to be backward-compatible with “af” and “at.” and increased energy efficiency. According to the article, a global move to 4-pair POE systems would create potential energy savings of 60.8 million kilowatt-hours which would prevent greenhouse gasses from 66 million pounds of coal saved annually.

Paul Vanderlaan, technical manager of cable maker Berk-Tek – Nexans’ advanced design and applications lab and other cabling-industry technical experts believe that 802.3bt’s support of 10GBase-T means that the minimum twisted-pair cabling system requirement will increase.  In order to support 10GBase-T, it seems likely that a Category 6A system will be the recommendation. The author notes that the IEEE does not address cabling performance, that is the focus of groups like the TIA or ISO/IEC.

The transition to the new PoE standard will not be simple. CommScope published a white paper where they explain:

Category 6A cabling… Category 5e cabling only provides the minimum level of performance required. Therefore, it is recommended to use Category 6 or Category 6A cabling-preferably solutions … 

Berk-Tek’s Vanderlaan explained why Category 6A cabling is the preferred system. He summarizes the electrical-engineering calculations;

As a general rule, increased copper content, or larger gauge size, will aid in power delivery … when you migrate … you should see larger gauge sizes and more copper content.

system performance characteristicsUnder the new standard users will have to pay attention to new cabling-system performance characteristics like DC resistance unbalance and pair-to-pair resistance imbalance.  The higher wattage’s up to 1 full amp (1,00 milliamps) will present challenges to performance requirements. Mr. Vanderlaan told Cabling Installation & Maintenance Magazine:

For users, cable selection will be based not just on the speed that can be supported, but rather on speed as well as power delivery. What you simply plug in today, you may want to also power in the future.

A new challenge cable plant owners will have to consider is heat. CommScope explains that heat generated within bundles of cables supporting IEEE 802.3bt could rise enough to effect performance.

ambient temperature… the temperature of the cabling will rise due to heat generation in the copper conductors  … the temperature of the cable bundle higher than the ambient temperature of the surrounding environment … The IEEE 802.3bt four-pair PoE standard is expected to assume a maximum temperature rise of 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees F) when all four pairs are energized … the ambient temperature should not exceed 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees F) … CommScope recommends Category 6A cabling for four-pair PoE applications. Because increased thermal loading can also increase insertion loss, the maximum cable length should be de-rated for higher temperatures, per ANSI/TIA-568-C.2.

Several vendors have already released pre-standard device-powering systems to meet users’ current needs.

As in the pre-PoE standard days, Cisco (CSCO) has marketed proprietary PoE systems since 2011. Cisco’s Universal Power Over Ethernet (UPOE) technology, which delivers 60 watts of power to devices powered by the Catalyst 4500E; some of those devices include Cisco IP phones, personal telepresence systems, compact switches and wireless access points.

Also, the non-standard Power Over HDBase-T (POH) was introduced by the HDBase-T Alliance a trade group that promotes and standardizes HDBase-T technology for whole-home distribution of uncompressed high-definition (HD) multimedia content. This system delivers up to 100 watts of power to TVs and other devices over distances up to 100 meters/320 feet via one Category 5e or 6 cable with standard RJ45 connectors.

rb-

The new standard is a welcome addition to the toolkit. Cost savings is one of the appeals to PoE. On many projects, PoE low voltage contractors can do the work rather than electrical contractors. If the new system pushes the maximum rate to 75W at the devices as some predict, with there be a backlash from the EC’s and authorities having jurisdiction? Time will tell.

In the meantime, the article says owners and managers should check their current infrastructure with eyes toward how the next generation of devices might be powered via more-capable PoE technology.

Of course, it is always a good idea to pull out your acceptance documentation to understand the installed base of the cable and the likelihood that the cable has the electrical performance characteristics required to support the next generation of PoE.

Related articles

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Entries   Recent Entries »