CISC-ND-001370 - The Cisco switch must be configured to use an authentication server for the purpose of authenticating users prior to granting administrative access - aaa auth default

Information

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.

Solution

Configure the Cisco switch to use an authentication server as shown in the following example:

Step 1: Define the authentication server.

SW1(config)# radius-server host 10.1.48.10 key xxxxxx

Step 2: Configure the AAA group.

SW1(config)# aaa group server radius RADIUS_SERVERS
SW1(config-radius)# server 10.1.48.10

Step 3: Use the AAA server for login authentication for both in-band and console access methods.

SW1(config)# aaa authentication login default group RADIUS_SERVERS
SW1(config)# aaa authentication login console group RADIUS_SERVERS

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_Cisco_NX-OS_Switch_Y21M10_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

References: 800-53|CM-6(1), 800-53|CM-6b., CAT|I, CCI|CCI-000366, CCI|CCI-000370, Rule-ID|SV-220513r604141_rule, STIG-ID|CISC-ND-001370, STIG-Legacy|SV-110675, STIG-Legacy|V-101571, Vuln-ID|V-220513

Plugin: Cisco

Control ID: 1463c98e6dc5542bc53ffddd80cfb6ac0ee6f8a02c7b3b4a53e692b493faf28b