IP Phone - delte certificates with factory reset

[Benjamin K.]

Hello!

One question about installed certificates on ip phones.
Is there any option to restore installed certificates (LSC for example), when the option "factory reset" was used on a phone?

Background for that question is, that a customer want to be sure that no information are left when phones get replaced.

When the answer is simply "yes" what kind of mechanics are used to be sure that no information are left on the factory reseted device? Did the process overrides the internal flash 100 times or has Cisco a certified process for that behavior?

thanks and best regards

Benjamin

[Mohammed al Baqari]

Hi,

Let me start with saying that phones firmware and partitioning isn't NTFS
or FAT to wipe it 100 times to make sure information can't be restored.
There is no concept of move to recycle bin while information is still held
in the clusters within partition. It uses Cisco custom version of firmware
to partition the phone and run it (same as symbion in the old days for
nokia).

Having that said, I don't think there is a certified process to wipe the
phones other than factory reset. The question to your client, have you been
able to verify if the phone still holds information or not. If I say that
factory reset wipes the phone 100 times, can they prove that it still holds
information?

[Benjamin K.]

Hello Mohammed,

first thank you very much for your answer!

And yes I also believe, that a overall positiv answer would be difficult or even possible.

But maybe we can provide facts?

When I get it correct from your post:

- Cisco IP Phones using a proprietary software and OS architecture to protect theire own and customer specific information like installed certificates.

- The recommended and only way to delete all customer releted information from a Cisco IP Phone is to make a factory reset.

- Cisco didn't know how to or can not restore information from a factory reseted phone

Would you agree to that points?

Thanks and best regards

Benjamin