Information
Determines the maximum connections, maximum embryonic connections, maximum connections per client and maximum embryonic connections per client that can be accepted on the outside interface
Rationale:
Limiting the number of connections protects from a DoS attack. The ASA uses the per-client limits and the embryonic connection limits to trigger TCP Intercept, which protects inside systems from a DoS attack perpetrated by flooding an interface with TCP SYN packets. An embryonic connection is a connection request that has not finished the necessary handshake between source and destination. TCP Intercept uses the SYN cookies algorithm to prevent TCP SYN-flooding attacks. A SYN-flooding attack consists of a series of SYN packets usually originating from spoofed IP addresses. The constant flood of SYN packets keeps the server SYN queue full, which prevents it from servicing connection requests.
NOTE: Nessus has not performed this check. Please review the benchmark to ensure target compliance.
Solution
* Step 1: Acquire the enterprise standard values for maximum connections, maximum embryonic connections, maximum connections per client and maximum embryonic connections per client
* Step 2: Run the following to configure the class to identify the traffic on which DOS protection should be performed.
HOSTNAME(CONFIG)# CLASS-MAP _<class_name>_
HOSTNAME(CONFIG-CMAP)# MATCH ANY
Step 3: Run the following to configure the policy that will determine the maximum connections to be applied on the class previously configured
HOSTNAME(CONFIG)# POLICY-MAP _<policy_name>_
HOSTNAME(CONFIG-PMAP)# CLASS _<class_name>_
HOSTNAME(CONFIG-PMAP-C)# SET CONNECTION CONN-MAX _<enterprise_max_number>_
HOSTNAME(CONFIG-PMAP-C)# SET CONNECTION EMBRYONIC-CONN-MAX_ <enterprise_max_number>_
HOSTNAME(CONFIG-PMAP-C)# SET CONNECTION PER-CLIENT-EMBRYONIC-MAX _<enterprise_max_number>_
HOSTNAME(CONFIG-PMAP-C)# SET CONNECTION PER-CLIENT-MAX _<enterprise_max_number> _
The enterprise_max_number parameter is to be taken between 0 and 65535.
* Step 4: Run the following to apply the policy previously configured on the untrusted
HOSTNAME(CONFIG-PMAP-C)# SERVICE-POLICY _<policy_name>_ INTERFACE _<untrusted_interface_name>_