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SDN Controller Security Requirements Guide

Rules, Groups, and Values defined within the XCCDF Benchmark

  • SRG-NET-000015

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to enforce approved authorizations for access to system resources in accordance with applicable access control policies.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;To mitigate the risk of unauthorized access to system resources within the SDN framework, authorization procedures and contro...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000018

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to enforce approved authorizations for controlling the flow of traffic within the network based on organization-defined information flow control policies.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Unrestricted traffic may contain malicious traffic which poses a threat to an enclave or data center. Additionally, unrestric...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000074

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to produce audit records containing information to establish what type of events occurred.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Without establishing what type of event occurred, it would be difficult to establish, correlate, and investigate the events l...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000075

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to produce audit records containing information to establish when the events occurred.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Without establishing when events occurred, it is impossible to establish, correlate, and investigate the events leading up to...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000076

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to produce audit records containing information to establish where the events occurred.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Without establishing where events occurred, it is impossible to establish, correlate, and investigate the events leading up t...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000077

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to produce audit records containing information to establish the source of the events.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Without establishing the source of the event, it is impossible to establish, correlate, and investigate the events leading up...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000078

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to produce audit records containing information to establish the outcome of the events.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Without information about the outcome of events, security personnel cannot make an accurate assessment as to whether an attac...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000079

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to generate audit records containing information that establishes the identity of any individual or process associated with the event.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Without information that establishes the identity of the subjects (i.e., users or processes acting on behalf of users) associ...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000131

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to disable non-essential capabilities.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;It is detrimental for network elements to provide, or enable by default, functionality exceeding requirements or mission obje...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000193

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to enforce a policy to manage bandwidth and to limit the effects of a packet-flooding Denial of Service (DoS) attack.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;A network element experiencing a DoS attack will not be able to handle production traffic load. The high utilization and CPU ...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000236

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controllers must be configured as a cluster in active/active or active/passive mode to preserve any information necessary to determine cause of a system failure and to maintain network operations with least disruption to workload processes and flows.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Failure in a known state can address safety or security in accordance with the mission needs of the organization. Failure to ...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000362

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to protect against or limit the effects of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks by rate-limiting control-plane communications.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;The SDN Controller is critical to all network operations because it is the component used to build all forwarding paths for t...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000364

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to only allow incoming communications from organization-defined authorized sources routed to organization-defined authorized destinations.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Unrestricted traffic may contain malicious traffic which poses a threat to an enclave or data center. Additionally, unrestric...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000512

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to generate error messages that provide information necessary for corrective actions without revealing information that could be exploited by adversaries.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Providing too much information in error messages on the screen or printout risks compromising the data and security of the SD...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000512

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to authenticate southbound Application Program Interface (API) control-plane messages received from SDN-enabled network elements using a FIPS-approved message authentication code algorithm.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Southbound APIs such as OpenFlow provide the forwarding tables to network devices, such as switches and routers, both physica...
    Rule High Severity
  • SRG-NET-000512

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to authenticate northbound Application Program Interface (API) messages received from business applications and management systems using a FIPS-approved message authentication code algorithm.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;The SDN controller determines how traffic should flow through physical and virtual network devices based on application profi...
    Rule High Severity
  • SRG-NET-000512

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to encrypt all southbound Application Program Interface (API) control-plane messages using a FIPS-validated cryptographic module.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Southbound APIs such as OpenFlow provide the forwarding tables to network devices, such as switches and routers, both physica...
    Rule High Severity
  • SRG-NET-000512

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to encrypt all northbound Application Program Interface (API) messages using a FIPS-validated cryptographic module.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;The SDN controller receives network service requests from orchestration and management systems to deploy and configure networ...
    Rule High Severity
  • SRG-NET-000512

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to authenticate received southbound Application Program Interface (API) management-plane messages using a FIPS-approved message authentication code algorithm.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;The SDN controller can receive management-plane traffic from the SDN-enabled devices that it monitors and manages. The messag...
    Rule High Severity
  • SRG-NET-000512

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to encrypt all southbound Application Program Interface (API) management-plane messages using a FIPS-validated cryptographic module.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;An SDN controller can manage and configure SDN-enabled devices using protocols such as SNMP and NETCONF. If an SDN-aware rout...
    Rule High Severity
  • SRG-NET-000512

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to be deployed as a cluster and on separate physical hosts.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;SDN relies heavily on control messages between a controller and the forwarding devices for network convergence. The controlle...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000512

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN Controller must be configured to notify the forwarding device to either drop the packet or make an entry in the flow table for a received packet that does not match any flow table entries.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Reactive flow setup occurs when the SDN-aware switch receives a packet that does not match the flow table entries and hence t...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000512

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • SDN controller must be configured to forward traffic based on security requirements.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;For security reasons, an organization may choose to have traffic that is inbound to a server go through a specific firewall. ...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000512

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to enable multi-tenant virtual networks to be fully isolated from one another.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) is often implemented in a multi-tenant paradigm, where customers share network infrastructure and...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • SRG-NET-000512

    <GroupDescription></GroupDescription>
    Group
  • The SDN controller must be configured to separate tenant functionality from system management functionality.

    &lt;VulnDiscussion&gt;Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) is frequently offered in a multi-tenant paradigm, where customers share network infrastructure. S...
    Rule Medium Severity

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