Protecting Cisco Unity Express
As mentioned previously in this chapter, Cisco Unity Express is a Linux-based application that runs on Cisco IOS Software routers with either an NM or an AIM. No external interfaces exist on the Cisco Unity Express hardware. In reality, a physical Fast Ethernet interface does exist; however, it is software disabled. All traffic to the Cisco Unity Express hardware must pass through the router. On the other hand, you can access Cisco Unity Express via the router command-line interface (CLI) using the service-module service-engine x/y session command in enable mode. The Cisco Unity Express module also has a CLI, but you cannot configure a password on it.
To protect the Cisco Unity Express application, you should first apply all router security best practices that you learned previously in this book to the router itself. In addition, you should only allow SSH access, instead of Telnet, to the router. Cisco Unity Express does not support SSH. However, the communication between the router and Cisco Unity Express is via the router backplane and is not exposed to external interfaces. Therefore, SSH access to the router is sufficient.
The initial versions of Cisco Unity Express did not support HTTPS. However, login to the Cisco Unity Express GUI is password protected. One major limitation is that the login information currently travels in cleartext across the IP network. To provide additional protection, you can use an IP Security (IPsec) tunnel to communicate to the router. However, HTTPS is supported on the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express and Cisco Unity Express since Cisco IOS Software Version 12.2(15)ZJ2. To enable HTTPS access to the Cisco Unity Express application, you must enable the secure HTTP server on Cisco IOS Software with the following two commands:
ip http server ip http secure-server
You should also use ACLs on the router to restrict access to only the protocols and ports that the Cisco Unity Express software uses. The following are the protocols and ports that Cisco Unity Express uses:
• SSH for administrative access: TCP port 22
• FTP: TCP port 21 for control and TCP port 20 for data (Active FTP only)
• HTTP: TCP port 80 for the Cisco IP phones
• HTTPS: TCP port 443 for administrative access to the GUI
• RTP: UDP port range from port 16384 to port 32767
Cisco Unity Express runs on Linux; however, access to the Linux operating system or to the Linux kernel is not direct. The Linux operating system is entirely embedded. Apply only the patches that Cisco provides. The same goes for SQL and LDAP support. Cisco Unity Express includes a SQL server and LDAP directory services; however, direct access does not exist to the SQL server or the LDAP directory.
As with the full version of Cisco Unity, you should also ensure that two servers are configured correctly: first, configuration of authentication to the FTP server that is used for software installation; and second, configuration of the FTP server that is used for backup and restore. Never leave the backup and restore FTP server password configured permanently on the Cisco Unity Express module. In addition, because mailbox PINs do not expire, a best practice is to change all passwords periodically, forcing users to reset their PINs to a new setting.
Continue reading here: Protecting Against Eavesdropping Attacks
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