Secure Conference
The Secure Conferencing feature provides authentication and encryption to secure a conference. A conference gets considered secure when all participating devices have encrypted signaling and media. The secure conference feature supports SRTP encryption over a secure TLS or IPSec connection.
The system provides a security icon for the overall security status of the conference, which is determined by the lowest security level of the participating devices. For example, a secure conference that includes two encrypted connections and one authenticated connection has a conference security status of authenticated.
To configure secure ad hoc and meet-me conferences, you configure a secure conference bridge.
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If a user initiates a conference call from a phone that is authenticated or encrypted, Unified Communications Manager allocates the secure conference bridge
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If a user initiates a call from a phone that is nonsecure, Unified Communications Manager allocates a nonsecure conference bridge.
When you configure conference bridge resources as nonsecure, the conference remains nonsecure, regardless of the security configuration for the phone.
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Unified Communications Manager allocates a conference bridge from the Media Resource Group List (MRGL) for the phone that is initiating the conference. If a secure conference bridge is not available, Unified Communications Manager assigns a nonsecure conference bridge, and the conference is nonsecure. Likewise, if a nonsecure conference bridge is not available, Unified Communications Manager assigns a secure conference bridge, and the conference is nonsecure. If no conference bridge is available, the call will fail. |
For meet-me conference calls, the phone that initiates the conference must also meet the minimum security requirement that is configured for the meet-me number. If no secure conference bridge is available or if the initiator security level does not meet the minimum, Unified Communications Manager rejects the conference attempt.
To secure conferences with barge, configure phones to use encrypted mode. After the Barge key is pressed and if the device is authenticated or encrypted, Unified Communications Manager establishes a secure connection between the barging party and the built-in bridge at the target device. The system provides a conference security status for all connected parties in the barge call.
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Nonsecure or authenticated Cisco Unified IP Phones that are running release 8.3 or later can now barge encrypted calls. |