UPnP Forum extends secured management

The UPnP Forum has announced the adoption and publication of its new Standardized Device Management: 2 Device Control Protocols (DCPs).

The new DCPs enhance the existing DeviceManagement:1 specification and adds security features. They now offer alarm management and bandwidth testing. The event management on parameter value change now enables not the identification of an alarm and the reasoning behind it, along with notifications. With improved bandwidth testing capabilities, DeviceManagement:2 also enhances diagnostics in order to resolve problems on the network.

The UPnP Forum said the implementation of DeviceManagement:2 in devices will prevent unauthorised invoking of device management actions and will help avoid potential attacks, by providing secure communication channels between network nodes, control points and devices.

Alan Messer, UPnP Forum president and chairman, said: “These new protocols extend our commitment to preventing unauthorised control points from managing UPnP devices, and facilitate the introduction of detailed and specific management operations for network device manufacturers.

“For service providers, these DCPs define rules to ensure that certain specific actions and resources will only be managed by an authorised control point. In addition, its use will allow multiple service providers to each manage their own area of interest, thereby minimising the possible unwanted side effects of such multi-party activity.”