Cisco IOS XE Switch NDM Security Technical Implementation Guide

Overview

Version	Date	Finding Count (42)			Downloads
2	2023-05-05 2020-09-23 2020-09-23 2020-09-23 2020-09-23 2021-09-16 2022-09-15 2022-09-15 2022-09-15 2023-02-17 2023-11-28	CAT I (High): 8	CAT II (Med): 34	CAT III (Low): 0	Excel	JSON	XML

STIG Description
This Security Technical Implementation Guide is published as a tool to improve the security of Department of Defense (DoD) information systems. The requirements are derived from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-53 and related documents. Comments or proposed revisions to this document should be sent via email to the following address: disa.stig_spt@mail.mil.

Available Profiles

Classified	Public	Sensitive
I - Mission Critical Classified	I - Mission Critical Public	I - Mission Critical Sensitive	II - Mission Support Classified	II - Mission Support Public	II - Mission Support Sensitive	III - Administrative Classified	III - Administrative Public	III - Administrative Sensitive

Findings (MAC III - Administrative Sensitive)

Finding ID	Severity	Title	Description
V-220544	High	The Cisco switch must be configured to terminate all network connections associated with device management after five minutes of inactivity.	Terminating an idle session within a short time period reduces the window of opportunity for unauthorized personnel to take control of a management session enabled on the console or console port...
V-220569	High	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...
V-220534	High	The Cisco switch must be configured to prohibit the use of all unnecessary and nonsecure functions and services.	Network devices are capable of providing a wide variety of functions and services. Some of the functions and services provided by default may not be necessary to support essential organizational...
V-220555	High	The Cisco switch must be configured to use FIPS-validated Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC) to protect the integrity of remote maintenance sessions.	Unapproved mechanisms that are used for authentication to the cryptographic module are not verified and therefore cannot be relied upon to provide confidentiality or integrity, and DoD data may be...
V-220543	High	The Cisco switch must only store cryptographic representations of passwords.	Passwords need to be protected at all times, and encryption is the standard method for protecting passwords. If passwords are not encrypted, they can be plainly read (i.e., clear text) and easily...
V-220568	High	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...
V-220565	High	The Cisco switch must be configured to use at least two authentication servers for the purpose of authenticating users prior to granting administrative access.	Centralized management of user accounts and authentication increases the administrative access to the switch. This control is a particularly important protection against the insider threat. With...
V-220556	High	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...
V-220524	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to enforce the limit of three consecutive invalid logon attempts, after which time it must lock out the user account from accessing the device for 15 minutes.	By limiting the number of failed logon attempts, the risk of unauthorized system access via user password guessing, otherwise known as brute-forcing, is reduced.
V-220525	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to display the Standard Mandatory DoD Notice and Consent Banner before granting access to the device.	Display of the DoD-approved use notification before granting access to the network device ensures privacy and security notification verbiage used is consistent with applicable federal laws,...
V-220526	Medium	The Cisco device must be configured to audit all administrator activity.	This requirement supports non-repudiation of actions taken by an administrator and is required in order to maintain the integrity of the configuration management process. All configuration changes...
V-220520	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to automatically audit account modification.	Since the accounts in the network device are privileged or system-level accounts, account management is vital to the security of the network device. Account management by a designated authority...
V-220521	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to automatically audit account disabling actions.	Account management, as a whole, ensures access to the network device is being controlled in a secure manner by granting access to only authorized personnel. Auditing account disabling actions will...
V-220522	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to automatically audit account removal actions.	Account management, as a whole, ensures access to the network device is being controlled in a secure manner by granting access to only authorized personnel. Auditing account removal actions will...
V-220523	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to enforce approved authorizations for controlling the flow of management information within the device based on control policies.	A mechanism to detect and prevent unauthorized communication flow must be configured or provided as part of the system design. If management information flow is not enforced based on approved...
V-220560	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to generate audit records when successful/unsuccessful logon attempts occur.	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...
V-220547	Medium	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...
V-220545	Medium	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...
V-220528	Medium	The Cisco switch must produce audit records containing information to establish when (date and time) the events occurred.	It is essential for security personnel to know what is being done, what was attempted, where it was done, when it was done, and by whom it was done in order to compile an accurate risk assessment....
V-220529	Medium	The Cisco switch must produce audit records containing information to establish where the events occurred.	In order to compile an accurate risk assessment and provide forensic analysis, it is essential for security personnel to know where events occurred, such as device hardware components, device...
V-220540	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one numeric 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...
V-220541	Medium	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...
V-220567	Medium	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...
V-220533	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to limit privileges to change the software resident within software libraries.	Changes to any software components of the network device can have significant effects on the overall security of the network. Therefore, only qualified and authorized individuals should be allowed...
V-220532	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to protect audit information from unauthorized deletion.	Audit information includes all information (e.g., audit records, audit settings, and audit reports) needed to successfully audit information system activity. If audit data were to become...
V-220548	Medium	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...
V-220549	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to synchronize its clock with the primary and secondary time sources using redundant authoritative time sources.	The loss of connectivity to a particular authoritative time source will result in the loss of time synchronization (free-run mode) and increasingly inaccurate time stamps on audit events and other...
V-220519	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to automatically audit account creation.	Upon gaining access to a network device, an attacker will often first attempt to create a persistent method of reestablishing access. One way to accomplish this is to create a new account....
V-220518	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to limit the number of concurrent management sessions to an organization-defined number.	Device management includes the ability to control the number of administrators and management sessions that manage a device. Limiting the number of allowed administrators and sessions per...
V-220561	Medium	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...
V-220537	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to enforce a minimum 15-character password length.	Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks. Password length is one factor of several that helps to...
V-220535	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured with only one local account to be used as the account of last resort in the event the authentication server is unavailable.	Authentication for administrative (privileged level) access to the device is required at all times. An account can be created on the device's local database for use when the authentication server...
V-220552	Medium	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...
V-220554	Medium	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...
V-220531	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to protect audit information from unauthorized modification.	Audit information includes all information (e.g., audit records, audit settings, and audit reports) needed to successfully audit network device activity. If audit data were to become compromised,...
V-220530	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to generate audit records containing the full-text recording of privileged commands.	Reconstruction of harmful events or forensic analysis is not possible if audit records do not contain enough information. Organizations consider limiting the additional audit information to only...
V-220559	Medium	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...
V-220542	Medium	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...
V-220539	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one lower-case 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...
V-220566	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to support organizational requirements to conduct backups of the configuration when changes occur.	System-level information includes default and customized settings and security attributes, including ACLs that relate to the network device configuration, as well as software required for the...
V-220538	Medium	The Cisco switch must be configured to enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one upper-case character be used.	Use of a complex passwords 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...
V-220553	Medium	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...