Cisco IOS XE Switch NDM Security Technical Implementation Guide
Rules, Groups, and Values defined within the XCCDF Benchmark
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The Cisco switch must be configured to enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one special character be used.
Use of a complex password helps to increase the time and resources required to compromise the password. Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resistin...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000170-NDM-000329
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The Cisco switch must be configured to require that when a password is changed, the characters are changed in at least eight of the positions within the password.
If the application allows the user to consecutively reuse extensive portions of passwords, this increases the chances of password compromise by increasing the window of opportunity for attempts at ...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000171-NDM-000258
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SRG-APP-000190-NDM-000267
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SRG-APP-000319-NDM-000283
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The Cisco switch must be configured to automatically audit account enabling actions.
Once an attacker establishes initial access to a system, the attacker often attempts to create a persistent method of reestablishing access. One way to accomplish this is for the attacker to simply...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000357-NDM-000293
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The Cisco switch must be configured to allocate audit record storage capacity in accordance with organization-defined audit record storage requirements.
In order to ensure network devices have a sufficient storage capacity in which to write the audit logs, they need to be able to allocate audit record storage capacity. The task of allocating audit ...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000360-NDM-000295
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The Cisco switch must be configured to generate an alert for all audit failure events.
It is critical for the appropriate personnel to be aware if a system is at risk of failing to process audit logs as required. Without a real-time alert, security personnel may be unaware of an impe...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000373-NDM-000298
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SRG-APP-000395-NDM-000310
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The Cisco switch must be configured to authenticate SNMP messages using a FIPS-validated Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC).
Without authenticating devices, unidentified or unknown devices may be introduced, thereby facilitating malicious activity. Bidirectional authentication provides stronger safeguards to validate the...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000395-NDM-000310
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The Cisco switch must be configured to encrypt SNMP messages using a FIPS 140-2 approved algorithm.
Without the strong encryption that is provided by the SNMP Version 3 User-based Security Model (USM), an unauthorized user can gain access to network management information that can be used to crea...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000395-NDM-000347
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The Cisco switch must be configured to authenticate Network Time Protocol (NTP) sources using authentication that is cryptographically based.
If Network Time Protocol is not authenticated, an attacker can introduce a rogue NTP server. This rogue server can then be used to send incorrect time information to network devices, which will mak...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000411-NDM-000330
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SRG-APP-000412-NDM-000331
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The Cisco switch must be configured to implement cryptographic mechanisms to protect the confidentiality of remote maintenance sessions.
This requires the use of secure protocols instead of their unsecured counterparts, such as SSH instead of telnet, SCP instead of FTP, and HTTPS instead of HTTP. If unsecured protocols (lacking cryp...Rule High Severity -
SRG-APP-000499-NDM-000319
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The Cisco switch must be configured to generate log records when administrator privileges are deleted.
Without generating audit records that are specific to the security and mission needs of the organization, it would be difficult to establish, correlate, and investigate the events relating to an in...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000503-NDM-000320
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SRG-APP-000504-NDM-000321
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The Cisco switch must be configured to generate log records for privileged activities.
Without generating audit records that are specific to the security and mission needs of the organization, it would be difficult to establish, correlate, and investigate the events relating to an in...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000516-NDM-000336
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SRG-APP-000516-NDM-000340
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SRG-APP-000516-NDM-000344
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The Cisco switch must be configured to obtain its public key certificates from an appropriate certificate policy through an approved service provider.
For user certificates, each organization obtains certificates from an approved, shared service provider, as required by OMB policy. For federal agencies operating a legacy public key infrastructure...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000516-NDM-000350
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The Cisco switch must be configured to send log data to at least two central log servers for the purpose of forwarding alerts to the administrators and the information system security officer (ISSO).
The aggregation of log data kept on a syslog server can be used to detect attacks and trigger an alert to the appropriate security personnel. The stored log data can used to detect weaknesses in se...Rule High Severity -
SRG-APP-000516-NDM-000351
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The Cisco switch must be running an IOS release that is currently supported by Cisco Systems.
Network devices running an unsupported operating system lack current security fixes required to mitigate the risks associated with recent vulnerabilities. Running a supported release also enables o...Rule High Severity
Node 2
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