Page 5 - Cisco Tribune Q1 2015

December/January 2017
Telecom Reseller 5 Using Lean Six Sigma
Alert Employees, Students, or Visitors to Emergencies with the DNA-510
HUDSON, WI – The Viking DNA-
510 Mass Notification Announcer allows users to record emergency messages for playback over an existing paging system. The unit comes with 10 pre-recorded alert tones, 2 minutes of available record time, and a single trigger input to quickly notify listeners of any situation. The DNA-510 can also broadcast a live page if a unique situation should arise.
“Alerting people quickly during an emergency can mean the difference between life and death. The DNA-510 shortens response times which can increase safety and minimize impact.” – Bill Heideman, President of Viking Electronics, Inc.
Use the DNA-510 to quickly and effectively deliver emergency tones and custom messages over an existing paging system. The DNA-510 has
a 600 Ohm output compatible with
a wide variety of paging amplifiers. When activated, the DNA-510 will interrupt a current page or background music and deliver its emergency message. A programmable trigger output is available to activate a strobe, alarm dialer, security system, cameras, etc.
The DNA-510 can interface with a standard analog phone for use at
a dedicated location. Alternatively, the DNA-510 can connect to a trunk port, station port, or to a dedicated POTS line to control emergency tones from any phone.
Simply call the phone number or extension number connected to the DNA-510, then use touch tones to trigger the desired tone or message. To prevent fraudulent use, the DNA- 510 can be programmed to require an access code before use.
For more information on the DNA-510, visit: https://www. vikingelectronics.com/product- details.php?pid=446
Viking Electronics designs and manufactures over 500 communication and security products, including VoIP and analog emergency phones, entry systems, paging interfaces, paging amplifiers, mass notification systems, hot line products, and enclosures. Many Viking products are designed to fix or add unique features to telephone or security applications, keeping
costs down while maintaining ease of use. All Viking products are designed, manufactured, and supported here
in the USA, and are backed by a two-year limited warranty. For more information, please visit: www. vikingelectronics.com.
fAor Innovation
s with many sectors, telecommunications is driven by the unrelenting demand of consumers
RAYAS
PATTERSON
e Mirai code which was used on the krebsonsecurity.com web site proved that eventually, DDoS attacks will out pace what service providers like Akamai can scrub. More recently, the Mirai Botnet was used to knock out 900,000 Deutsche Telekom customers. e infection was due to a vulnerability that was found on port 7547 when using the TR-069 or TR-064 protocols. ese services are used in the remote management of consumer-grade routers typically found in people’s homes.
One researcher discovered that there are over 40M devices on the Internet with port 7547 open, making them potentially vulnerable to Mirai infections. Consumers generally lack an understanding of the need to upgrade their router, and those that are aware o en lack the skill set to do it and even businesses can have devices that remain vulnerable. 40M devices that can be recruited into a botnet army is the reason why the mere threat of a DDoS attack is enough for some companies to open their wallets to ransom requests.
UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS (UC)
Enterprises are further proliferating the deployment of IoT devices in the name of improved customer service. Embedding Internet connected capabilities into business and consumer goods provides a means to unify communications and dynamically track the health and state of those products. Imagine customer satisfaction scores when devices can self-diagnose, and send data home. Customers can be proactively contacted to either x failing
products, or they may even nd a brand new replacement arrive, without the need to ever place a support call. is marriage between IoT and UC will place millions upon millions of poorly secured devices onto the Internet further expanding the threat surface for Mirai.
SMART DUST
e growth of IoT devices that Gartner is estimating isn’t just coming from DVRs, routers and hand held devices. ere is potentially
a much more widely deployed vulnerable computer on the horizon called Smart Dust. ese very small chips contain a system of tiny microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) such as sensors, robots, or other devices, that for example, can transmit temperature, vibration, GPS coordinates and more. If these IoT devices support IPv6, they could use Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN) to access the Internet. With the onboard batteries receiving their recharge energy source from wireless networks or even heat from the land ll they are buried in, these little guys could be on the internet forever. Technologies like LORA/SIGFOX promise to provide devices with connectivity that costs little or nothing. If the cost of nanoscale sensors drops to a price point that essentially makes them disposable, IoT vendors will likely skimp on security measures assuming that they will become garbage.
For example, projects that lean toward sensory information collected from trillions of devices such as Planetary Skin Institute’s project or HP’s Central Nervous System for the Earth
for advancements, and a ercely competitive challenger landscape. e demands for added functionality, speed and reliability mean that building a collaborative relationship with vendors, partners and consumers is paramount.
However, unlike other industries, these factors within telecom have combined uniquely to produce a perpetual environment where innovation is more critical to business success, than in other industries. With mobile network operators expanding their o erings to incorporate everything from broadband and Cloud services, to various IoT ecosystems, innovation can, and will, take many forms in 2017.
Most people would say that innovation in the telecoms space simply means new, state- of-the-art technologies. While it certainly
can mean this, it can also mean the use of di erent approaches conducive to operationally e cient outcomes. With this in mind, one of the industry’s best kept secrets is the ‘Lean Six Sigma’ methodology.
Lean Six Sigma is a powerful, proven method of improving business e ciency
and e ectiveness, and despite its origin in manufacturing, it has spread into all manner of industry sectors. e key pillars of the methodology focus on the end customer; identi cation and understanding of value streams; improved process ows and reduction of non-value-added steps; the education and equipping of teams and the undertaking of improvements in a systematic way.
When applied to network operators, Lean Six Sigma can measure and improve both internal processes, such as development and testing; external-facing areas like network speed and reliability; and also line-of-business processes too.
(CeNSE) could introduced overwhelming amounts of bots if they are compromised. CeNSE is a project that proposes to collect, communicate, and analyze data from billions of nanoscale sensors. ese sensors would be deployed in a Machine to Machine (M2M) network, but could also utilize 6LoWPAN to connect to the internet. is could become a huge problem for forgotten sensors with a long battery life and perpetual connectivity. A er their primary use expires, if they don’t have
a hardware shut down function built in, they could be sitting in a land ll and still used for malicious activities for decades. We can look to Apple HomeKit for inspiration on how
to minimize the risk of connected zombie devices. To be part of the ecosystem, 3rd party vendors have to support strong encryption and device identity in hardware, which would help to protect against many of the “low hanging fruit” attacks that plague devices involved in Mirai. Unfortunately, when scaling devices
into the billions, cost and speed-to-market become major obstacles. e only way to convince vendors to do the right thing is to create standards that people want like electronic devices UL or CE.
PROTECTION AGAINST DDOS
Vendors such as A10, F5 and Radware manufacture scrubbing appliances that can
be used to remove DDoS tra c from normal tra c streams. e question is, can they scale as the DDoS attacks grow every year in size by double digits? A er speaking with one major
by Thomas Rayas, Sr. Vice President Marketing & Customer Success at FutureDial (www. futuredial.com)
e implementation of a Lean Six Sigma program does not occur overnight, but the bene ts can be recognised relatively swi ly either by using external, expert service providers or create internal task forces with the appropriate skills and understanding of the methodology.
Improving performance at a carrier level can be challenging, as there are many variables present: enhancements must be realistic, while also bringing about advances; risk assessments should be done, and the focus should be on improvements that enhance the quality of
the overall end service whether that’s from an external customer-facing, or internal process- driven perspective.
Business owners, employees, and shareholders must collectively decide which measurements really matter to them; establish some form
of accountability and visibility; and set up a mechanism to establish and track results. ey must also come to the cultural conclusion that change is a desirable and bene cial thing and necessary for continued success.
However, just because something is di cult doesn’t mean it should be disregarded. Remember Blackberry & Nokia during the early 2000s? Just because you’re a market leader now, by no means guarantees you will be tomorrow.
Lean Six Sigma is not a new business methodology.
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United States service provider, we learned that their strategy against DDoS is to simply keep buying more bandwidth which allows them to carry additional DDoS tra c loads and pushes the problem of stopping the DDoS onto the shoulders of the companies being attacked. Victims of DDoS engage with companies like Akamai for mitigation services but, as Brian Krebs found out, their scrubbing capabilities are no longer su cient given the rapid increase in DDoS tra c volumes.
Unfortunately, expensive tra c scrubbers are the best way today to mitigate DDoS attacks. ere is a lot of discussion on forums like NANOG.org about implementing best practices. For example, BCP38 could be used to perform ingress ltering on spoofed addresses but, the big service providers have no motivation to implement it and source address validation
only resolves part of the problem. Ultimately we need a way to detect, pinpoint and remove devices that are participating malicious tra c patterns like DDoS.
NetFlow and IPFIX collection systems can detect and pinpoint the device participating
in a DDoS attack but, removal is a tough one. Imagine a typical home with lots of appliances and hand held devices sitting behind a rewall performing NAT. Since they all leave the house with the same IP address, how do you know which device(s) in the house are engaged in
the malicious activity? e DDoS problem is rapidly getting worse, and in 2017, it is poised to be the largest security threat corporate security teams will face. ●