Wick Hill adds UC security with Sipera partnership

Security focused disti Wick Hill has announced a partnership with Sipera, a specialist in unified communication security. The deal, which adds Wick Hill alongside existing distributor Westcon, targets traditional firewall and non-mainstream PABX partners.

Bernie Dodwell, EMEA channel director for Sipera, highlights the recent case of a UK firm that was the victim of a £10,000 toll fraud perpetrated by external hacking of its SIP-enabled PABX. He gives another example of a hedge fund in the UK, where systems were breached using malformed SIP packets to gain unauthorised access to the data network and potentially steal sensitive information.

The firm’s monitoring appliance works with any SIP-based product including systems from Cisco, Avaya, Siemens and Microsoft’s OCS platform. Dodwell stresses that mobile devices in particular are a significant cause for concern. “We have seen a six fold increase in threats via mobile devices and the problem is getting worse,” he says

Although the firm has used Westcon as its primary distributor, a relationship which has helped establish around a dozen UK partners, Dodwell believes that Wick Hill will help bring the vendor into other markets.

Famous for its partnership with WatchGuard and other pioneering security vendors, Wick Hill has a community of several thousand partners selling firewall products as well as UC solutions from Samsung and Panasonic.

Ian Kilpatrick, chairman Wick Hill Group, comments: “WatchGuard was the first firewall appliance, it was filling a big gap and we see this as being in the same position.” Kilpatrick believes Wick Hill is well suited to develop the market with training and education around the security issues posed by UC as a key requirement.

Wick Hill also has a complementary range of call encryption and recording solutions which Kilpatrick believes provides partners with great up sell potential alongside any Sipera install.