Since version 8.2, when Sophos UTM was called Astaro Security Gateway, the firewall distribution has the ability to filter by application instead of just ports, making it what marketing loves to call a “next-generation firewall”. Sophos calls this Application Control, Palo Alto Networks calls this App-ID, and other vendors have different names for it, but the underlying technology is similar to how an IDS would detect attacks by using signatures. In simple terms, the firewall identifies traffic based on application signatures and takes actions based on that. ...

When integrating an AudioCodes gateway with Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging, you may see an issue where the call is terminated while someone is leaving a voicemail longer than 30 seconds. This is because the gateway assumes the connection is broken the moment you start speaking, since UM is no longer sending RTP packets or silence suppression codes. The solution is to turn of the Disconnect on Broken Connection on the IP profile used for your UM server within the AudioCodes gateway. ...

Microsoft released updates to Lync Phone Edition devices yesterday, including updates for devices like the popular Polycom CX600 and CX3000 that we use around the office. An item worth mentioning is an update that enables non-EV or non-UC users to sign-in to Lync Phone Edition devices, and still use them for PC-to-PC calls, detailed here. Here’s the download (for CX series devices): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2988181. If you have other devices like Aastra or HP, there are other downloads out there.

Useful little utility if you’re probing network ports to find out where you’re plugged in. This reads Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) or Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) packets coming in the interface you pick, and displays it all. Sure beats filtering Wireshark packets! http://chall32.blogspot.com/2013/03/ldwin-link-discovery-for-windows.html

LyncFix: This Just In: Lync 2013 CU5 Has Been Released!.

If the default Zeacom System Administrator (or System Admin) credentials for your deployment have not been changed, they should be: Login Name: System Admin Password: 2222

New July 2014 Lync Phone Edition updates: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2973941 This cumulative update resolves the following issue: 2973943 Update for Lync Phone Edition to accommodate daylight saving time (DST) in Egypt and Morocco

My good colleague Anthony Caragol wrote a nice Lync tool to backup and restore contacts in Lync 2013. Check it out! Lync 2013 Contact Backup and Restore Tool (GUI).

Update: Sophos released an official guide on how to get Lync Web Services to work over the UTM’s WAF. https://sophserv.sophos.com/repo_kb/120454/file/Configuring%20UTM%20firewall%20for%20Lync%20connectivity.pdf Using a Sophos UTM or Astaro Security Gateway (ASG) appliance? You can use it to reverse proxy to your Lync front ends! v8 a feature called Web Application Firewall, which is a nicely wrapped version of Apache mod_proxy, and can be configured to reverse proxy your Lync Mobility and simple URLs, Office Web Apps and can also work with Exchange and pass Outlook Anywhere. The added benefit is that you can configure rules to block Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and SQL Injection type attacks, among other things. ...

Both Lync and Exchange rely heavily on public-key encryption using X.509 certificates (commonly known as SSL Certificates), and so they are required in every implementation. Regardless of whether you are using a public certification authority like DigiCert, or host your own internal CA, generating, installing and managing certificates can get pretty complex, especially when you have to deal with Intermediate Certificates. Certificate Chains can be a confusing concept and hopefully I do a good job in trying to explain them with a real-world analogy. Here goes: ...