This configuration example configures a Cisco IOS device in order to send logging information to a remote syslog server: Refer to Identifying Incidents Using Firewall and IOS Router Syslog Events for more information on log correlation. Use the Password Phrase Method: • Choose a phrase that has numbers. IPSec can also be used in order to validate and secure routing protocols, but these examples do not detail its use. This configuration example illustrates the use of this command: ICMP redirects are used in order to inform a network device of a better path to an IP destination. Subsequent methods are only attempted in cases where earlier methods fail due to server unavailability or incorrect configuration. Unicast RPF relies on you to enable Cisco Express Forwarding on each device and is configured on a per-interface basis. IP Source Guard can be applied to Layer 2 interfaces belonging to DHCP snooping-enabled VLANs. If no enable secret is set and a password is configured for the console tty line, the console password can be used in order to receive privileged access, even from a remote virtual tty (vty) session. Some feature descriptions in this document were written by Cisco information development teams. This example illustrates the configuration of this feature: As BGP packets are received, the TTL value is checked and must be greater than or equal to 255 minus the hop-count specified. When you design or implement a redundant AAA server solution, remember these considerations: Refer to Deploy the Access Control Servers for more information. Peer authentication with MD5 creates an MD5 digest of each packet sent as part of a BGP session. Prefixes that are sourced from all other autonomous systems are filtered and not installed in the routing table. The use of Transit ACLs is also relevant to the hardening of the data plane. This takeover would allow an attacker to perform a man-in-the-middle attack and intercept all user traffic that exits the network. The three functional planes of a network, the management plane, control plane, and data plane, each provide different functionality that needs to be protected. Usernames, passwords, and the contents of access control lists are examples of this type of information. Classification ACLs provide visibility into traffic that traverses an interface. Prefix lists should be used where possible in order to ensure network traffic is sent over the intended paths. This configuration example limits directed broadcasts to those UDP packets that originate at a trusted network, 192.168.1.0/24: It is possible to control what traffic transits the network with the use of transit ACLs (tACLs). This information can be abused by malicious users. In order to properly protect the control plane of the Cisco IOS device, it is essential to understand the types of traffic that is process switched by the CPU. This example illustrates the basic configuration of this feature. If it is necessary to recover the password of a Cisco IOS device once this feature is enabled, the entire configuration is deleted. When appropriate, you are advised to use views to limit users of SNMP to the data that they require. Hardening is to make system hard to protect from unauthorized access and is an on-going process of providing security. Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI) can be used in order to mitigate ARP poisoning attacks on local segments. In this example, MPP is used in order to restrict SNMP and SSH access to only the FastEthernet 0/0 interface: Refer to Management Plane Protection Feature Guide for more information. This document is not restricted to specific software and hardware versions. Where appropriate, configuration recommendations are made. For example, a VLAN map might be used in order to prevent hosts that are contained within the same VLAN from communication with each other, which reduces opportunities for local attackers or worms to exploit a host on the same network segment. In other words, ICMP redirects should never go beyond a Layer 3 boundary. BGP autonomous system (AS) path access lists allows the user to filter received and advertised prefixes based on the AS-path attribute of a prefix. Dynamic Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Inspection (DAI) mitigates attack vectors that use ARP poisoning on local segments. This example iACL configuration illustrates the structure that must be used as a starting point when you begin the iACL implementation process: Once created, the iACL must be applied to all interfaces that face non-infrastructure devices. Peer authentication with MD5 is configured with the password option to the neighbor BGP router configuration command. This indication is the case for any IP address that requires direct handling by the Cisco IOS device CPU, which includes interface IP addresses, multicast address space, and broadcast address space. SSHv1 and SSHv2 are not compatible. This example includes the configuration of logging timestamps with millisecond precision within the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) zone: If you prefer not to log times relative to UTC, you can configure a specific local time zone and configure that information to be present in generated log messages. Refer to Configuring Port Security for more information about the Port Security confuration. Community strings are passwords that are applied to an IOS device to restrict access, both read-only and read-write access, to the SNMP data on the device. NetFlow and Classification ACLs are the two primary methods to accomplish this with Cisco IOS software. In the next few lessons, we'll do a deep dive on the best practices that an IT support specialist should know for implementing network hardening. Refer to Understanding Control Plane Protection and Control Plane Protection for more information about the CPPr feature. The size of the logging buffer is configured with the global configuration command logging buffered size. CoPP is available in Cisco IOS Software Release trains 12.0S, 12.2SX, 12.2S, 12.3T, 12.4, and 12.4T. For production environments, community strings should be chosen with caution and should consist of a series of alphabetical, numerical, and non-alphanumeric symbols. The CPPr policy also drops packets with selected IP options received by the device. IP source routing leverages the Loose Source Route and Record Route options in tandem or the Strict Source Route along with the Record Route option to enable the source of the IP datagram to specify the network path a packet takes. The rACL protects the device from harmful traffic before the traffic impacts the route processor. While this does mitigate the threats related to IP options for the local device, it is possible that downstream devices could be affected by the presence of IP options. Implement one hardening aspect at a time and then test all server and application functionality. The ACEs that make up this ACL are not comprehensive. Additional information about these communication vehicles is available in the Cisco Security Vulnerability Policy. The hash is used in order to determine if the server has an entry that matches. This checklist is a collection of all the hardening steps that are presented in this guide. However, there are instances where it may be beneficial to perform this filtering on a Cisco IOS device in the network, for example, where filtering must be performed but no firewall is present. By using password authentication with routing protocols between routers, you can aid the security of the network. This configuration example includes the configuration of a logging buffer of 16384 bytes, as well as a severity of 6, informational, which indicates that messages at levels 0 (emergencies) through 6 (informational) is stored: Refer to Cisco IOS Network Management Command Reference for more information about buffered logging. The example below also configures interface FastEthernet 1/1 as an isolated port in VLAN 11: A secondary VLAN that is configured as a community VLAN allows communication among members of the VLAN as well as with any promiscuous ports in the primary VLAN. You need to have knowledge of a vulnerability before the threat it can pose to a network can be evaluated. Refer to ACL IP Options Selective Drop for more information about this feature. Note that syslog messages are transmitted unreliably by UDP and in cleartext. The management plane is the plane that receives and sends traffic for operations of these functions. Classification ACLs are a component of ACLs and require pre-planning to identify specific traffic and manual intervention during analysis. Refer to Understanding Access Control List Logging for more information about how to enable logging capabilities within ACLs. You are advised to enable this feature in order to prevent both inadvertent and malicious attempts to delete these files. SNMP Version 3 (SNMPv3) is defined by RFC3410,  RFC3411,  RFC3412,  RFC3413,  RFC3414,  and RFC3415  and is an interoperable standards-based protocol for network management. The AAA framework provides a highly configurable environment that can be tailored based on the needs of the network. SCP relies on SSH. Optionally, a number from 1 to 100 can also be entered. Additionally, a malicious user can create a denial of service (DoS) condition with repeated attempts to authenticate with a valid username. In an effort to prevent information disclosure or unauthorized access to the data that is transmitted between the administrator and the device, transport input ssh should be used instead of clear-text protocols, such as Telnet and rlogin. Within the context of a Cisco IOS device configuration, two additional aspects of configuration management are critical: configuration archival and security. The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) was designed as a control protocol for IP. Refer to TTL Expiry Attack Identification and Mitigation for more information on mitigating TTL expiry-based attacks. There are many tools available that can easily decrypt these passwords. By adding MD5 hash capabilities to the authentication process, routing updates no longer contain cleartext passwords, and the entire contents of the routing update is more resistant to tampering. In Cisco IOS Software Release 12.4(15)T and later, the Reserve Memory for Console Access feature can be used in order to reserve enough memory to ensure console access to a Cisco IOS device for administrative and troubleshooting purposes. Hackers regularly find security holes in network operating systems. NetFlow enables you to monitor traffic flows in the network. This functionality can be used in attempts to route traffic around security controls in the network. This configuration example shows how to enable this feature with the memory free low-watermark global configuration command. This configuration builds upon previous examples that include configuration of the TACACS servers. See the Logging Best Practices section of this document for more information about how to implement logging on Cisco IOS network devices. Memory Reservation is used so that sufficient memory is available for critical notifications. It is important to implement a correct and consistent logging timestamp configuration to ensure that you are able to correlate logging data. A new (special or production) key for a (special or production) image comes in a (production or revocation) image that is used in order to revoke the previous special or production key. Releases of Cisco IOS software prior to 12.0 have this functionality enabled by default. The Enhanced Crashinfo File Collection feature automatically deletes old crashinfo files. Three control plane subinterfaces exist: Host, Transit and CEF-Exception. In addition, CPPr includes these additional control plane protection features: CPPr allows an administrator to classify, police, and restrict traffic that is sent to a device for management purposes with the host subinterface. The enable password command uses a weak encryption algorithm. In Cisco IOS Software Release 12.4(4)T and later, Flexible Packet Matching (FPM) allows an administrator to match on arbitrary bits of a packet. IP options present a security challenge for network devices because these options must be processed as exception packets. Refer to An Introduction to Cisco IOS NetFlow - A Technical Overview for a technical overview of NetFlow. Community strings should be changed at regular intervals and in accordance with network security policies. Security Hardening Guides provide prescriptive guidance for customers on how to deploy and operate VMware products in a secure manner. Although this action does enhance the accountability of network administrators in TACACS+ outages, it significantly increases the administrative burden because local user accounts on all network devices must be maintained. The configuration of logging timestamps helps you correlate events across network devices. The ACL counters can be cleared by with the clear ip access-list counters acl-name EXEC command. GTSM for BGP is enabled with the ttl-security option for the neighbor BGP router configuration command. This functionality is enabled with the logging enable configuration change logger configuration mode command. SNMP provides you with a wealth of information on the health of network devices. All transit traffic that crosses the network and is not destined to infrastructure devices is then explicitly permitted. This configuration example uses AS path access lists in order to restrict inbound prefixes to those originated by the remote AS and outbound prefixes to those originated by the local autonomous system. In ROMMON, the device software can be reloaded in order to prompt a new system configuration that includes a new password. Network Security Hardening Guide The Password Phrase Method: The phrase method is an easy way to remember complicated passwords that are hard to crack. Refer to IOS SNMP Command Reference for more information about this feature. If a network absolutely requires directed broadcast functionality, its use should be controlled. Once IP Options Selective Drop has been enabled, the show ip traffic EXEC command can be used in order to determine the number of packets that are dropped due to the presence of IP options. The small services are disabled by default in Cisco IOS Software Releases 12.0 and later. Passwords of this type must be eliminated and the enable secret command or the Enhanced Password Security feature needs to be used. Additional information about filtering unused addresses is available at the Bogon Reference Page . An administrator is able to establish an encrypted and secure remote access management connection to a device with the SSH or HTTPS (Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol) features. This scenario is common in a publicly accessible network or anywhere that servers provide content to untrusted clients. Fragmentation is also often used in attempts to evade detection by intrusion detection systems. These unneeded services, especially those that use User Datagram Protocol (UDP), are infrequently used for legitimate purposes but can be used in order to launch DoS and other attacks that are otherwise prevented by packet filtering. These packets, which transit the devices deployed throughout the network, can impact CPU operations of a device. This kind of communication can allow an attacker to pose as an FHRP-speaking device to assume the default gateway role on the network. Protection of the control plane of a network device is critical because the control plane ensures that the management and data planes are maintained and operational. These configuration lines configure a read-only community string of READONLY and a read-write community string of READWRITE: Note: The previous community string examples have been chosen in order to clearly explain the use of these strings. HWRLs can protect the Cisco IOS device from a variety of attacks that require packets to be processed by the CPU. The functionality from this example must be used in conjunction with the functionality of the previous examples. This more granular classification of traffic into specific ACEs can help provide an understanding of the network traffic because each traffic category has its own hit counter. Regulations such as HIPAA, HITRUST, CMMC, and many others rely on those recommendations, demanding organizations to enforce and comply with the guide. If the server is successfully authenticated, the session establishment continues; otherwise it is terminated and displays a Server Authentication Failed message. Methods used in order to secure access must include the use of AAA, exec-timeout, and modem passwords if a modem is attached to the console. Cisco IOS devices have a limited number of vty lines; the number of lines available can be determined with the show line EXEC command. Because of the nonintuitive nature of fragment handling, IP fragments are often inadvertently permitted by ACLs. Once enabled, an administrator can cause the current running configuration to be added to the archive with the archive config privileged EXEC command. Switch ports that are placed into the primary VLAN are known as promiscuous ports. Even though patches are a bit of a nuisance, they’re well worth the effort for the protection that they afford. Logging timestamps should be configured to include the date and time with millisecond precision and to include the time zone in use on the device. eBGP is one such protocol. The configuration of a Cisco IOS device contains many sensitive details. Port Security can use dynamically learned (sticky) MAC addresses to ease in the initial configuration. If one of these planes is successfully exploited, all planes can be compromised. Refer to Cisco IOS NetFlow for more information on NetFlow capabilities. Cisco IOS software provides a password recovery procedure that relies upon access to ROM Monitor Mode (ROMMON) using the Break key during system startup. Instead, the area filter-list command can be used. This configuration example limits log messages that are sent to remote syslog servers and the local log buffer to severities 6 (informational) through 0 (emergencies): Refer to Troubleshooting, Fault Management, and Logging for more information. SNMPv3 consists of three primary configuration options: An authoritative engine ID must exist in order to use the SNMPv3 security mechanisms - authentication or authentication and encryption - to handle SNMP packets; by default, the engine ID is generated locally. There are two security concerns presented by IP options. MAC access control lists or extended lists can be applied on IP network with the use of this command in interface configuration mode: Note: It is to classify Layer 3 packets as Layer 2 packets. In many cases, you can disable the reception and transmission of certain types of messages on an interface in order to minimize the amount of CPU load that is required to process unneeded packets. Control Plane Protection (CPPr) builds on the functionality of Control Plane Policing in order to restrict and police control plane traffic that is destined to the route processor of the IOS device. The Hardening Guide adopts standard security and privacy controls and maps them to each of the recommendations. A typical network operating system can support dozens of different types of network services: file and printer sharing, web server, mail server, and many others. This information is designed in order to corrupt the ARP cache of other devices. Refer to Configuring Dynamic ARP Inspection for more information on how to configure DAI. Issue the, Unless Cisco IOS devices retrieve configurations from the network during startup, the, Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) is a network protocol that is used in order to discover other CDP enabled devices for neighbor adjacency and network topology. The distribute-list command is available for OSPF, but it does not prevent a router from propagating filtered routes. Cisco differentiates these use cases: These sections describe each scenario in detail: Note: The vstack command was introduced in Cisco IOS Release 12.2(55)SE03. You can issue the memory reserve console global configuration command in order to enable this feature. Customers who do not use the Cisco Smart Install feature, and run a release of Cisco IOS and Cisco IOS XE software where the command is available, should disable the Smart Install feature with the. This document describes the information to help you secure your Cisco IOS® system devices, which increases the overall security of your network. First Hop Redundancy Protocols (FHRPs) provide resiliency and redundancy for devices that act as default gateways. Once a VLAN map is configured, all packets that enter the LAN are sequentially evaluated against the configured VLAN map. The simplest form of access control to a vty or tty of a device is through the use of authentication on all lines regardless of the device location within the network. This example shows how to enable the Login Password Retry Lockout feature: This feature also applies to authentication methods such as CHAP and Password Authentication Protocol (PAP). This is in contrast to the copy filename running-config command. You must be aware that console ports on Cisco IOS devices have special privileges. Configuration management is a process by which configuration changes are proposed, reviewed, approved, and deployed. Although most of this document is devoted to the secure configuration of a Cisco IOS device, configurations alone do not completely secure a network. Unlike the passive-interface router configuration command, routing occurs on interfaces once route filtering is enabled, but the information that is advertised or processed is limited. Active Directory plays a critical role in the IT infrastructure, and ensures the harmony and security of different network resources in a global, interconnected environment. The vast majority of data plane traffic flows across the network as determined by the network’s routing configuration. This feature is configured with the global configuration command configuration mode exclusive mode and operates in one of two modes: auto and manual. Administrators can use it as a reminder of all the hardening features used and considered for a Cisco IOS device, even if a feature was not implemented because it did not apply. Network hardening is the process of securing a network by reducing its potential vulnerabilities through configuration changes, and taking specific steps. After MPP is enabled, no interfaces except designated management interfaces accept network management traffic that is destined to the device. Warning. NetFlow flows can be created with sampled traffic data in high-volume environments. NetFlow identifies anomalous and security-related network activity by tracking network flows. Any Cisco IOS configuration file that contains encrypted passwords must be treated with the same care that is used for a cleartext list of those same passwords. The service tcp-keepalives-in command must also be used in order to enable TCP keepalives on incoming connections to the device. However, note that a locally configured password for privileged access is still needed in the event of failure of the TACACS+ or RADIUS services. EIGRP and RIPv2 utilize Key Chains as part of the configuration. These sections provide a brief overview of each feature. Stored manually or automatically, the configurations in this archive can be used in order to replace the current running configuration with the configure replace filename command. One of the most common interfaces that is used for in-band access to a device is the logical loopback interface. Port Security is used in order to mitigate MAC address spoofing at the access interface. An iACL should contain a policy that denies unauthorized SNMP packets on UDP port 161. In order to perform password recovery, an unauthenticated attacker would need to have access to the console port and the ability to interrupt power to the device or to cause the device to crash. It is critical that SNMP be properly secured in order to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of both the network data and the network devices through which this data transits. SSH provides a means to securely access and securely execute commands on another computer or device over a network. Once this feature is enabled, it is possible to restore a deleted configuration or Cisco IOS software image. The NIST SP 800-123 Guide to General Server Security contains NIST recommendations on how to secure your servers. This presents a DoS attack vector. The National Security Agency publishes some amazing hardening guides, and security information. Basically, default settings of Domain Controllers are not hardened. The lowest severity included in the buffer is configured with the logging buffered severity command. On your server, an ACE that permits or denies each command that is destined the! A default gateway the methods that can be applied on the selection of non-trivial passwords a overview. Are specific to MD5 authentication commands no logging console and no logging monitor in order to this... 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