Cisco IOS Switch RTR Security Technical Implementation Guide
Rules, Groups, and Values defined within the XCCDF Benchmark
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SRG-NET-000205-RTR-000015
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SRG-NET-000205-RTR-000016
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SRG-NET-000512-RTR-000100
Group -
SRG-NET-000512-RTR-000012
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SRG-NET-000512-RTR-000013
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The Cisco switch must not be configured to use IPv6 Site Local Unicast addresses.
As currently defined, site local addresses are ambiguous and can be present in multiple sites. The address itself does not contain any indication of the site to which it belongs. The use of site-lo...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-NET-000512-RTR-000014
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The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to suppress Router Advertisements on all external IPv6-enabled interfaces.
Many of the known attacks in stateless autoconfiguration are defined in RFC 3756 were present in IPv4 ARP attacks. To mitigate these vulnerabilities, links that have no hosts connected such as the ...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-NET-000364-RTR-000200
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The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to drop IPv6 undetermined transport packets.
One of the fragmentation weaknesses known in IPv6 is the undetermined transport packet. This packet contains an undetermined protocol due to fragmentation. Depending on the length of the IPv6 exten...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-NET-000364-RTR-000201
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SRG-NET-000364-RTR-000202
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SRG-NET-000364-RTR-000203
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The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to drop IPv6 packets containing a Destination Option header with invalid option type values.
These options are intended to be for the Hop-by-Hop header only. The optional and extensible natures of the IPv6 extension headers require higher scrutiny since many implementations do not always d...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-NET-000364-RTR-000204
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SRG-NET-000364-RTR-000205
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The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to drop IPv6 packets containing the NSAP address option within Destination Option header.
The optional and extensible natures of the IPv6 extension headers require higher scrutiny since many implementations do not always drop packets with headers that it cannot recognize, and hence coul...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-NET-000364-RTR-000206
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The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to drop IPv6 packets containing a Hop-by-Hop or Destination Option extension header with an undefined option type.
The optional and extensible natures of the IPv6 extension headers require higher scrutiny since many implementations do not always drop packets with headers that it cannot recognize, and hence coul...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to enforce approved authorizations for controlling the flow of information within the network based on organization-defined information flow control policies.
Information flow control regulates where information is allowed to travel within a network and between interconnected networks. The flow of all network traffic must be monitored and controlled so i...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to enable routing protocol authentication using FIPS 198-1 algorithms with keys not exceeding 180 days of lifetime.
A rogue router could send a fictitious routing update to convince a site's perimeter router to send traffic to an incorrect or even a rogue destination. This diverted traffic could be analyzed to l...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to have all inactive Layer 3 interfaces disabled.
An inactive interface is rarely monitored or controlled and may expose a network to an undetected attack on that interface. Unauthorized personnel with access to the communication facility could ga...Rule Low Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to have gratuitous ARP disabled on all external interfaces.
A gratuitous ARP is an ARP broadcast in which the source and destination MAC addresses are the same. It is used to inform the network about a host IP address. A spoofed gratuitous ARP message can c...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to have IP directed broadcast disabled on all interfaces.
An IP directed broadcast is a datagram sent to the broadcast address of a subnet that is not directly attached to the sending machine. The directed broadcast is routed through the network as a unic...Rule Low Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to have Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) unreachable messages disabled on all external interfaces.
The ICMP supports IP traffic by relaying information about paths, routes, and network conditions. Switches automatically send ICMP messages under a wide variety of conditions. Host unreachable ICMP...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to have Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) mask reply messages disabled on all external interfaces.
The ICMP supports IP traffic by relaying information about paths, routes, and network conditions. Switches automatically send ICMP messages under a wide variety of conditions. Mask Reply ICMP messa...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to have Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) redirect messages disabled on all external interfaces.
The ICMP supports IP traffic by relaying information about paths, routes, and network conditions. Switches automatically send ICMP messages under a wide variety of conditions. Redirect ICMP message...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to log all packets that have been dropped at interfaces via an access control list (ACL).
Auditing and logging are key components of any security architecture. It is essential for security personnel to know what is being done or attempted to be done, and by whom, to compile an accurate ...Rule Low Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to produce audit records containing information to establish where the events occurred.
Without establishing where events occurred, it is impossible to establish, correlate, and investigate the events leading up to an outage or attack. To compile an accurate risk assessment and prov...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to produce audit records containing information to establish the source of the events.
Without establishing the source of the event, it is impossible to establish, correlate, and investigate the events leading up to an outage or attack. To compile an accurate risk assessment and pr...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to deny network traffic by default and allow network traffic by exception.
A deny-all, permit-by-exception network communications traffic policy ensures that only connections that are essential and approved are allowed. This requirement applies to both inbound and outbo...Rule High Severity -
The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to only allow incoming communications from authorized sources to be routed to authorized destinations.
Unrestricted traffic may contain malicious traffic that poses a threat to an enclave or to other connected networks. Additionally, unrestricted traffic may transit a network, which uses bandwidth a...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to filter traffic destined to the enclave in accordance with the guidelines contained in DoD Instruction 8551.1.
Vulnerability assessments must be reviewed by the System Administrator, and protocols must be approved by the Information Assurance (IA) staff before entering the enclave. Access control lists (A...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to filter ingress traffic at the external interface on an inbound direction.
Access lists are used to separate data traffic into that which it will route (permitted packets) and that which it will not route (denied packets). Secure configuration of switches makes use of acc...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to filter egress traffic at the internal interface on an inbound direction.
Access lists are used to separate data traffic into that which it will route (permitted packets) and that which it will not route (denied packets). Secure configuration of switches makes use of acc...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to have Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) disabled on all external interfaces.
LLDP is a neighbor discovery protocol used to advertise device capabilities, configuration information, and device identity. LLDP is media-and-protocol-independent as it runs over Layer 2; therefor...Rule Low Severity -
The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to have Proxy ARP disabled on all external interfaces.
When Proxy ARP is enabled on a switch, it allows that switch to extend the network (at Layer 2) across multiple interfaces (LAN segments). Because proxy ARP allows hosts from different LAN segments...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to only permit management traffic that ingresses and egresses the out-of-band management (OOBM) interface.
The OOBM access switch will connect to the management interface of the managed network elements. The management interface can be a true OOBM interface or a standard interface functioning as the man...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco PE switch must be configured to block any traffic that is destined to the IP core infrastructure.
IP addresses can be guessed. Core network elements must not be accessible from any external host. Protecting the core from any attack is vital for the integrity and privacy of customer traffic as w...Rule High Severity -
The Cisco PE switch must be configured with Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding (uRPF) loose mode enabled on all CE-facing interfaces.
The uRPF feature is a defense against spoofing and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks by verifying if the source address of any ingress packet is reachable. To mitigate attacks that rely on forged sou...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco PE switch must be configured to enforce a Quality-of-Service (QoS) policy to provide preferred treatment for mission-critical applications.
Different applications have unique requirements and toleration levels for delay, jitter, bandwidth, packet loss, and availability. To manage the multitude of applications and services, a network re...Rule Low Severity -
The Cisco P switch must be configured to enforce a Quality-of-Service (QoS) policy to provide preferred treatment for mission-critical applications.
Different applications have unique requirements and toleration levels for delay, jitter, bandwidth, packet loss, and availability. To manage the multitude of applications and services, a network re...Rule Low Severity -
The Cisco switch must be configured to enforce a Quality-of-Service (QoS) policy to limit the effects of packet flooding denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
DoS is a condition when a resource is not available for legitimate users. Packet flooding distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are referred to as volumetric attacks and have the objective o...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco multicast switch must be configured to disable Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) on all interfaces that are not required to support multicast routing.
If multicast traffic is forwarded beyond the intended boundary, it is possible that it can be intercepted by unauthorized or unintended personnel. Limiting where, within the network, a given multic...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco multicast switch must be configured to bind a Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) neighbor filter to interfaces that have PIM enabled.
PIM is a routing protocol used to build multicast distribution trees for forwarding multicast traffic across the network infrastructure. PIM traffic must be limited to only known PIM neighbors by c...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco multicast Designated switch (DR) must be configured to filter the Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) and Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) Report messages to allow hosts to join a multicast group only from sources that have been approved by the organization.
Real-time multicast traffic can entail multiple large flows of data. Large unicast flows tend to be fairly isolated (i.e., someone doing a file download here or there), whereas multicast can have b...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco multicast Designated switch (DR) must be configured to limit the number of mroute states resulting from Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) and Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) Host Membership Reports.
The current multicast paradigm can let any host join any multicast group at any time by sending an IGMP or MLD membership report to the DR. In a Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) Sparse Mode net...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco multicast Designated switch (DR) must be configured to set the shortest-path tree (SPT) threshold to infinity to minimalize source-group (S, G) state within the multicast topology where Any Source Multicast (ASM) is deployed.
ASM can have many sources for the same groups (many-to-many). For many receivers, the path via the RP may not be ideal compared with the shortest path from the source to the receiver. By default, t...Rule Medium Severity -
The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to restrict it from accepting outbound IP packets that contain an illegitimate address in the source address field via egress filter or by enabling Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding (uRPF).
A compromised host in an enclave can be used by a malicious platform to launch cyberattacks on third parties. This is a common practice in "botnets", which are a collection of compromised computers...Rule High Severity -
The Cisco perimeter switch must be configured to block all packets with any IP options.
Packets with IP options are not fast switched and henceforth must be punted to the switch processor. Hackers who initiate denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on switches commonly send large streams of ...Rule Medium Severity
Node 2
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