Information
Connections to the PIC Console should require a password.
Rationale:
Many JUNOS Devices (including M, MX & T Series Routers, PTX Series and High End SRXs) utilize Physical Interface Cards to provide interface flexibility.
Some PICs include additional Console Ports for performing advanced diagnostics on the Packet Forwarding Engine (PFE) with physical access to the device. An attacker, who was able to gain access to this normally unauthenticated port, may be able to impact the device or seek to escalate their privileges, bypassing normal authentication mechanisms.
To prevent this, pic-console-authentication should be configured using a secure password which is not the same as that used by any user or the Root account.
Impact:
The configured password will be required before accessing the PIC Console to perform diagnostics.
Solution
To set a password for access to the PIC Console, issue the following command from the [edit system] hierarchy:
[edit system]
user@host# set pic-console-authentication plain-text-password
The JUNOS Device will prompt you to enter a new password, which must meet the complexity requirements configured under [edit system login], as shown below:
[edit system]
user@host# set pic-console-authentication plain-text-password
New password:
Retype new password:
Default Value:
No authentication is required to access the PIC Console by default.