As discussed in the previous chapters, a Cisco Collaboration solution has many elements, including infrastructure, endpoints, applications, gateways, and so on. While all of these work together to deliver a seamless user experience, they need to be secured to ensure that business continuity is maintained and the communication channels are operational. The objective of securing a Cisco Collaboration solution is to secure a converged communications network to protect its availability, the confidentiality of data that it carries, and the integrity of this data.
Security Policy
The fundamental step to achieve a robust and secure converged network is to develop a security policy that specifies an appropriate security plan, design, implementation, and operations policy. A security policy gives direction to the efforts to deploy security controls at the various layers of the OSI model, starting at the physical layer, Layer 1, up through the application layer, Layer 7. At a high level, a security policy should at least address the following from a Cisco Collaboration network perspective:
- Acceptable usage and conduct pertinent to Cisco Collaboration network resources
- Physical layer security
- Network infrastructure security
- Perimeter security
- Server hardening
- User endpoint security
- Wireless infrastructure security
- Backup and restore (including disaster recovery) security
- Provision for lawful interception of calls