CASA-ND-001150 - The Cisco ASA must be configured to implement cryptographic mechanisms using a FIPS 140-2 approved algorithm to protect the confidentiality of remote maintenance sessions - ssh cipher

Information

This requires the use of secure protocols instead of their unsecured counterparts, such as SSH instead of telnet, SCP instead of FTP, and HTTPS instead of HTTP. If unsecured protocols (lacking cryptographic mechanisms) are used for sessions, the contents of those sessions will be susceptible to eavesdropping, potentially putting sensitive data (including administrator passwords) at risk of compromise and potentially allowing hijacking of maintenance sessions.

Solution

Step 1: Enable FIPS mode via the fips enable command.

Step 2: Configure SSH to only use FIPS-compliant ciphers and Diffie-Hellman Group 14 for the key exchange.

ASA(config)# ssh cipher encryption fips
ASA(config)# ssh key-exchange group dh-group14-sha

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_Cisco_ASA_Y24M07_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: MAINTENANCE

References: 800-53|MA-4(6), CAT|I, CCI|CCI-003123, Rule-ID|SV-239931r961557_rule, STIG-ID|CASA-ND-001150, Vuln-ID|V-239931

Plugin: Cisco

Control ID: 069fdf98be9602abcc5e88b9551ed95df228fe6a1ad28d76d1d3faa25056cf1c