Detections
Analytics

ESXI-06-000061 - The virtual switch Promiscuous Mode policy must be set to reject.

Information

When promiscuous mode is enabled for a virtual switch all virtual machines connected to the Portgroup have the potential of reading all packets across that network, meaning only the virtual machines connected to that Portgroup. Promiscuous mode is disabled by default on the ESXi Server, and this is the recommended setting. Promiscuous mode can be set at the vSwitch and/or the Portgroup level. You can override switch level settings at the Portgroup level.

Solution

From the vSphere Client go to Configuration >> Networking >> vSphere Standard Switch. For each virtual switch go to properties and change 'Promiscuous Mode' to reject for the switch and each port group.

or

From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host run the following commands:

Get-VirtualSwitch | Get-SecurityPolicy | Set-SecurityPolicy -AllowPromiscuous $false
Get-VirtualPortGroup | Get-SecurityPolicy | Set-SecurityPolicy -AllowPromiscuousInherited $true

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_VMware_vSphere_6-0_ESXi_V1R5_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: SYSTEM AND COMMUNICATIONS PROTECTION

References: 800-53|SC-7(12), CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000366, Group-ID|V-63291, Rule-ID|SV-77781r1_rule, STIG-ID|ESXI-06-000061, Vuln-ID|V-63291

Plugin: VMware

Control ID: 2497afca33cf1e6d5b2e6c838fd9e4b638df93cad66a3196f6b87a24724dc261