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Cisco Router Hardening Checklist

Q: Why is configuring access lists (ACLs) for Telnet and SSH access on Cisco devices crucial, and how are these implemented?

Configuring ACLs for Telnet and SSH access is crucial as it restricts device management access to trusted networks or specific IP addresses, reducing the risk of unauthorized remote access. ACLs are implemented by defining access-list rules and applying them to VTY lines to control incoming IPs that are allowed to initiate management sessions .

Q: Why is it essential to encrypt passwords on Cisco devices, and what limitations exist with the current encryption method?

Encrypting passwords on Cisco devices is essential to prevent unauthorized access and to safeguard passwords from being viewed easily in system configuration files. However, the current encryption method, using the 'service password-encryption' command, employs a weak Vigenere cipher that can be decrypted with software tools . This encryption mainly protects against casual observers but is not robust against determined attackers with technical skills.

Q: What are some potential security risks associated with the use of Telnet for managing Cisco devices, and how can these be mitigated?

Telnet poses security risks because it transmits data, including passwords, in plaintext, making it vulnerable to eavesdropping and interception. These risks can be mitigated by using SSH instead of Telnet for managing Cisco devices, as SSH encrypts all management traffic, providing a secure channel . Configuring SSH involves setting a hostname, domain name, generating RSA keys, and specifying acceptable authentication attempts and timeouts .

Q: How does configuring maximum failed authentication attempts strengthen the security of Cisco devices?

Configuring maximum failed authentication attempts strengthens security by preventing brute force attacks. By setting a threshold for login attempts, the device locks out users after a specified number of failures, thus limiting the ability of attackers to repeatedly guess passwords and minimizing the risk of unauthorized access through repeated trial and error .

Q: How does utilizing an external AAA server enhance the security of privileged administrative access compared to using local accounts on Cisco devices?

Using an external AAA server enhances security significantly by centralizing authentication, authorization, and accounting processes. It allows for strong password management policies, detailed tracking of user access, centralized administration, and the ability to enforce consistent security policies across all devices. This setup reduces the security risks associated with managing local user accounts on each device, which can be difficult to maintain uniformly and are less scalable .

Q: Describe how configuring separate local accounts for user authentication can offer accountability and enhance security on Cisco devices.

Configuring separate local accounts for each administrator provides accountability by allowing network administrators to track individual user activities, and detect and attribute specific actions performed on the device. This enhances security as each user can have tailored access rights, reducing the risk posed by shared user accounts that can obfuscate responsibility and allow excessive privilege .

Q: What is the significance of Network Time Protocol (NTP) in the context of network device security and log management?

NTP's significance in network security lies in ensuring time synchronization across all network devices, which is crucial for accurate logging and event correlation. Without synchronized timestamps, it would be challenging to track and correlate events, hampering incident response and forensic analysis. Correct time settings enable precise log entries that are essential for monitoring and auditing processes .

Q: Explain how enabling both local buffered logging and external server logging can enhance network security monitoring.

Enabling both local buffered logging and external server logging enhances network security by providing multiple layers of log data storage and accessibility. Local buffered logging offers immediate access to recent activity logs on the device, useful for quick troubleshooting. Logging to an external server allows for long-term storage, enabling extensive analysis, and correlation of logs that can be vital for incident detection, response, and auditing processes .

Q: How can Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) be both beneficial and potentially risky in network management?

SNMP is beneficial for monitoring network devices, collecting data, and managing configurations efficiently. However, it can be risky if not securely configured because it can expose sensitive device information. This is mitigated by implementing strong community strings, applying IP filtering to restrict access, and using Access Control Lists (ACLs) to limit SNMP actions to authorized IP addresses only .

Q: What role does the Management Plane play in securing network devices, and why is its security considered a priority?

The Management Plane is responsible for the management, configuration, and monitoring of network devices. Its security is considered a priority because it directly controls access to the device configuration, execution of commands, and collection of logs and data needed for network management. Unsecured management access can lead to unauthorized modifications and potential exploitation, impacting the device and the entire network's security .

The document provides a 10 step security hardening checklist for Cisco routers and switches. It discusses securing the management plane by creating strong passwords, encrypting passwords, using external AAA servers for authentication, restricting management access to specific IP addresses, enabling logging, using Network Time Protocol, and preferring secure shell (SSH) over insecure telnet. Implementing these steps enhances the security of network devices and the enterprise network as a whole.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)

202 views7 pages

Cisco Router Hardening Checklist

Uploaded by

Faouzi Maddouri

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Introduction to Security Hardening for Cisco Routers/Switches
Steps for Security Hardening

Security Hardening Checklist Guide for

Cisco Routers/Switches in 10 Steps

Network infrastructure devices (routers, switches, load balancers, firewalls etc) are
among the assets of an enterprise that play an important role in security and thus need
to be protected and configured accordingly.

Many enterprises focus on protecting their data, servers, applications, databases etc
but they forget about security of network devices which are sometimes installed with
out-of-the-box configurations.

A compromised router for example can be devastating to the whole security of the
enterprise since it can be used to gain access to data, reconfigured to route traffic to
other destinations, used to launch attacks to other networks, used to gain access to
other internal resources etc.

Therefore, hardening the network devices themselves is essential for enhancing the
whole security of the enterprise.

Cisco separates a network device in 3 functional elements called “Planes”. These are
the following:

 Management Plane: This is about the management of a network device. The

management plane is used to access, configure, manage and monitor a
network device. The security of the management plane is discussed in this
article.
 Control Plane: Control plane consists of the protocols and processes that
communicate between network devices in order to move data from source to
destination. This includes routing protocols such as the BGP, OSPF, signaling
protocols etc.
 Data Plane: The data plane is responsible for moving data from source to
destination. This is where most data packets are flowing within the network
device (usually hardware accelerated as well).
From the three Planes above, the Management Plane first and the Control Plane
second are the most important to secure.

In this article we will focus on Management Plane security and discuss the 10 most
important steps to harden a Cisco IOS network device.

The security checklist below is not exhaustive but it includes the most important
commands and configurations that will lock down a Cisco IOS network device and
enhance its security and that of the whole network as well. The checklist below
applies to both Cisco Routers and Switches as well.

1) Create an Enable Secret Password

In order to grant privileged administrative access to the IOS device, you should create
a strong “Enable Secret” Password. I suggest to use a password with at least 10
characters long consisting of alphanumeric and special symbols.

Make sure to use the “enable secret” command which creates a password with strong
encryption.

Router# config terminal

Router(config)# enable secret strongpassword

2) Encrypt Passwords on the device

All the passwords configured on the Cisco device (except the “enable secret”) are
shown as clear text in the configuration file. In order to encrypt the clear text
passwords and obscure them from showing in the configuration file, use the global
command “service password-encryption”.

Router# config terminal

Router(config)# service password-encryption

The command above uses a fairly weak Vigenere cipher which can be decrypted with
software tools. It is used mainly to prevent casual observers from reading passwords,
such as when they look at the screen over the shoulder of an administrator.

3) Use an external AAA server for User Authentication

Instead of using local user accounts on each device for administrator access, it’s much
more secure, flexible and scalable to use an external AAA server (TACACS+ or
RADIUS) to handle the Authentication, Authorization and Accounting of users’
access to the devices.

With a centralized AAA server you can easily change/enable/disable account

passwords, enforce strong password policies, monitor account usage and user access
etc.

Router# config terminal

Router(config)# enable secret K6dn!#scfw35 <- Create first an “enable secret”
password
Router(config)# aaa new-model <- Enable the AAA service
Router(config)# aaa authentication login default group tacacs+ enable <-Use
TACACS for authentication with “enable” password as fallback
Router(config)# tacacs-server host [Link] <- assign the internal AAA
server
Router(config)# tacacs-server key ‘secret-key’ <- secret key configured on AAA
server
Router(config)# line vty 0 4
Router(config-line)# login authentication default <- Apply AAA authentication
to VTY lines (Telnet, SSH etc)
Router(config-line)# exit
Router(config)# line con 0 <- Apply AAA authentication to console port
Router(config-line)# login authentication default

RADIUS
Router# config terminal
Router(config)# enable secret K6dn!#scfw35 <- Create first an “enable secret”
password
Router(config)# aaa new-model <- Enable the AAA service
Router(config)# aaa authentication login default group radius enable <- Use
RADIUS for authentication with “enable” password as fallback
Router(config)# radius-server host [Link] <- assign the internal AAA
server
Router(config)# radius-server key ‘secret-key’ <- secret key configured on AAA
server
Router(config)# line vty 0 4
Router(config-line)# login authentication default <- Apply AAA authentication
to VTY lines (Telnet, SSH etc)
Router(config-line)# exit
Router(config)# line con 0 <- Apply AAA authentication to console port
Router(config-line)# login authentication default

4) Create separate local accounts for User Authentication

If you can’t install and use an external AAA server as discussed in the previous
section, at a bare minimum create separate local accounts for anyone that you will
give access to your devices.

If you have for example 3 network administrators and you have to use local device
accounts for them, then create a personalized user account for each administrator.
This accomplishes accountability for each different administrator about the actions
performed on the device.

Moreover, from IOS version 12.2(8)T and later you can configure “Enhanced
Password Security” for local accounts created on the device. This means that local
accounts will be encrypted with MD5 hash.

Let’s configure 3 different local administrator accounts with “Enhanced Password

Security”.

Router# config terminal

Router(config)# username john-admin secret Lms!a2eZSf*%
Router(config)# username david-admin secret d4N3$6&%sf
Router(config)# username mary-admin secret 54sxSFT*&(zsd

5) Configure Maximum Failed Authentication Attempts

To avoid brute force password attacks to the devices, you can configure maximum
number of failed login attempts so that a user will be locked out after this threshold.

This works for local user accounts on the devices.

Router# config terminal

Router(config)# username john-admin secret Lms!a2eZSf*%
Router(config)# aaa new-model
Router(config)# aaa local authentication attempts max-fail 5 <- max 5 failed
login attempts
Router(config)# aaa authentication login default local

6) Restrict Management Access to the devices to specific IPs only

This is probably one of the most important security configurations on Cisco network
devices. You should restrict what IP addresses can Telnet or SSH to your devices.
This should be limited to a few management systems that administrators will be using
to manage the network.

Assume that the administrators’ subnet is [Link]/28

Router# config terminal

Router(config)# access-list 10 permit [Link] [Link]
Router(config)# line vty 0 15
Router(config)# access-class 10 in <- Apply IP restrictions to all VTY lines (for
Telnet or SSH)

7) Enable Logging

Logging is very useful for monitoring, incident response and auditing. You can enable
logging to an internal buffer of the device or to an external Log server. The latter is
much more flexible and helpful since you can store much more log data and perform
analysis on logs much easier than local logging.

MORE READING: How to configure Cisco Router with IOS Firewall Functionality
– CBAC

There are 8 different logging levels (from 0 to 7) each one giving progressively more
log data details. You should avoid logging level 7 (debug) since it will overload the
device.

Here we will discuss both buffered logging (internal to the device) and Logging to an
external Server. You can have both if you want as shown below.

Router# config terminal

Router(config)# logging trap 6 <- Enable logging level 6 for logs sent to external
server
Router(config)# logging buffered 5 <- Enable logging level 5 for logs stored
locally in buffer
Router(config)# service timestamps log datetime msec show-timezone <- Include
timestamps in logs with millisecond precision
Router(config)# logging host [Link] <- Send logs to external log server
Router(config)# logging source-interface ethernet 1/0 <- Use Eth1/0 to send log
messages

8) Enable Network Time Protocol (NTP)

This step is essential for the previous section about logging. You must have accurate
and uniform clock settings on all network devices in order for log data to be stamped
with the correct time and timezone. This will help tremendously in incident handling
and proper log monitoring and correlation.

You can either configure an internal or external NTP server (there are several public
NTP servers that you can use as well).

Router# config terminal

Router(config)# ntp server [Link]
Router(config)# ntp server [Link]

9) Use Secure Management Protocols if possible

Telnet is the default management protocol for Command Line access to Cisco
devices. However, all management traffic is clear-text with Telnet. For security
reasons, prefer SSH for management instead of Telnet.

Let’s see how to configure SSH access to a Cisco device.

Router# config terminal

Router(config)# hostname London
London(config)# ip domain-name [Link]
London(config)# ip ssh version 2
London(config)# crypto key generate rsa modulus 2048
London(config)# ip ssh time-out 60
London(config)# ip ssh authentication-retries 3
London(config)# line vty 0 15
London(config-line)# transport input ssh

SSH requires to have a hostname and domain-name configured and also to generate
SSH keys. Also, on VTY lines allow SSH protocol only.

10) Restrict and Secure SNMP Access

The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) can be very useful to collect
information from network devices but can also pose a security risk if not configured
properly.

SNMP protocol uses a “Community String” which acts as password for restricting
access (Read Only or Read/Write) to the SNMP data on the device. In addition to
configuring a strong Community String, IP filtering must also be applied to allow
SNMP access only from few management workstations.

Let’s configure two Community strings (one “READ ONLY” and another one
“READ/WRITE”) and also apply IP address control with ACLs.

Router# config terminal

Router(config)# access-list 11 permit [Link] [Link]
Router(config)# access-list 12 permit [Link]
Router(config)# snmp-server community Cbd43@#w5SDF RO 11 <- Create
Read Only (RO) community string and use ACL 11 to allow SNMP access
Router(config)# snmp-server community Xcv4#56&454sdS RW 12 <- Create
Read Write (RW) community string and use ACL 12 to allow SNMP access

The above commands allow the administrators subnet [Link]/28 to have Read
Only SNMP access to devices and also allows host [Link] to have full
Read/Write SNMP access to devices.

In a different post I will discuss security of the Control Plane so stay tuned.

Common questions