The Cisco switch must be configured to use at least two authentication servers to authenticate users prior to granting administrative access.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-220617	CISC-ND-001370	SV-220617r939989_rule		High

Description

Centralized management of user accounts and authentication increases the administrative access to the switch. This control is particularly important protection against the insider threat. With robust centralized management, audit records for administrator account access to the organization's network devices can be more readily analyzed for trends and anomalies. The alternative method of defining administrator accounts on each device exposes the device configuration to remote access authentication attacks and system administrators with multiple authenticators for each network device.

STIG	Date
Cisco IOS Switch NDM Security Technical Implementation Guide	2023-11-28

Details

Check Text ( C-22332r939987_chk )

Review the Cisco switch configuration to verify that the device is configured to use at least two authentication servers as the primary source for authentication as shown in the example below: aaa new-model ! aaa authentication CONSOLE local aaa authentication login LOGIN_AUTHENTICATION group radius local … … … ip http authentication aaa login-authentication LOGIN_AUTHENTICATION ip http secure-server … … … radius-server host x.x.x.x auth-port 1812 acct-port 1813 key xxxxxxx radius-server host x.x.x.x auth-port 1812 acct-port 1813 key xxxxxxx … … … line con 0 exec-timeout 5 0 login authentication CONSOLE line vty 0 1 exec-timeout 5 0 login authentication LOGIN_AUTHENTICATION If the Cisco switch is not configured to use at least two authentication servers to authenticate users prior to granting administrative access, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-22321r939988_fix)

Step 1: Configure the Cisco switch to use at least two authentication servers as shown in the example below: SW4(config)#radius host 10.1.48.2 key xxxxxx SW4(config)#radius host 10.1.48.3 key xxxxxx Step 2: Configure the authentication order to use the authentication servers as the primary source for authentication as shown in the example below: SW4(config)#aaa authentication CONSOLE local SW4(config)#aaa authentication login LOGIN_AUTHENTICATION group radius local Step 3: Configure all network connections associated with device management to use the authentication servers for login authentication: SW4(config)#line vty 0 1 SW4(config-line)#login authentication LOGIN_AUTHENTICATION SW4(config-line)#exit SW4(config)#line con 0 SW4(config-line)#login authentication CONSOLE SW4(config-line)#exit SW4(config)#ip http authentication aaa login-authentication LOGIN_AUTHENTICATION