The Cisco IOS XE router must protect against or limit the effects of denial of service (DoS) attacks by employing control plane protection.

From Cisco IOS XE Release 3 RTR Security Technical Implementation Guide

Part of SRG-NET-000362-RTR-000110

Associated with: CCI-002385

SV-88813r2_rule The Cisco IOS XE router must protect against or limit the effects of denial of service (DoS) attacks by employing control plane protection.

Vulnerability discussion

The Route Processor (RP) is critical to all network operations because it is the component used to build all forwarding paths for the data plane via control plane processes. It is also instrumental with ongoing network management functions that keep the routers and links available for providing network services. Any disruption to the Route Processor or the control and management planes can result in mission-critical network outages. A DoS attack targeting the Route Processor can result in excessive CPU and memory utilization. To maintain network stability and Route Processor security, the router must be able to handle specific control plane and management plane traffic that is destined to the Route Processor. In the past, one method of filtering was to use ingress filters on forwarding interfaces to filter both forwarding path and receiving path traffic. However, this method does not scale well as the number of interfaces grows and the size of the ingress filters grow. Control plane policing increases the security of routers and multilayer switches by protecting the Route Processor from unnecessary or malicious traffic. Filtering and rate limiting the traffic flow of control plane packets can be implemented to protect routers against reconnaissance and DoS attacks, allowing the control plane to maintain packet forwarding and protocol states despite an attack or heavy load on the router or multilayer switch.

Check content

Step 1: Verify traffic types have been classified based on importance levels. The following is an example configuration: class-map match-all CoPP_CRITICAL match access-group name CoPP_CRITICAL class-map match-any CoPP_IMPORTANT match access-group name CoPP_IMPORTANT match protocol arp class-map match-all CoPP_NORMAL match access-group name CoPP_NORMAL class-map match-any CoPP_UNDESIRABLE match access-group name CoPP_UNDESIRABLE class-map match-all CoPP_DEFAULT match access-group name CoPP_DEFAULT Step 2: Review the ACLs referenced by the match access-group commands to determine if the traffic is being classified appropriately. The following is an example configuration: ip access-list extended CoPP_CRITICAL remark our control plane adjacencies are critical permit ospf host [OSPF neighbor A] any permit ospf host [OSPF neighbor B] any permit pim host [PIM neighbor A] any permit pim host [PIM neighbor B] any permit pim host [RP addr] any permit igmp any 224.0.0.0 15.255.255.255 permit tcp host [BGP neighbor] eq bgp host [local BGP addr] permit tcp host [BGP neighbor] host [local BGP addr] eq bgp deny ip any any ! ip access-list extended CoPP_IMPORTANT permit tcp host [TACACS server] eq tacacs any permit tcp [management subnet] 0.0.0.255 any eq 22 permit udp host [SNMP manager] any eq snmp permit udp host [NTP server] eq ntp any deny ip any any ! ip access-list extended CoPP_NORMAL remark we will want to rate limit ICMP traffic permit icmp any any echo permit icmp any any echo-reply permit icmp any any time-exceeded permit icmp any any unreachable deny ip any any ! ip access-list extended CoPP_UNDESIRABLE remark other management plane traffic that should not be received permit udp any any eq ntp permit udp any any eq snmptrap permit tcp any any eq 22 permit tcp any any eq 23 remark other control plane traffic not configured on router permit eigrp any any permit udp any any eq rip deny ip any any ! ip access-list extended CoPP_DEFAULT permit ip any any Note: Explicitly defining undesirable traffic with ACL entries enables the network operator to collect statistics. Excessive ARP packets can potentially monopolize Route Processor resources, starving other important processes. Currently, ARP is the only Layer 2 protocol that can be specifically classified using the match protocol command. Step 3: Review the policy-map to determine if the traffic is being policed appropriately for each classification. The following is an example configuration: policy-map CONTROL_PLANE_POLICY class CoPP_CRITICAL police 512000 8000 conform-action transmit exceed-action transmit class CoPP_IMPORTANT police 256000 4000 conform-action transmit exceed-action drop class CoPP_NORMAL police 128000 2000 conform-action transmit exceed-action drop class CoPP_UNDESIRABLE police 8000 1000 conform-action drop exceed-action drop Step 4: Verify that the CoPP policy is enabled. The following is an example configuration: control-plane service-policy input CONTROL_PLANE_POLICY If the Cisco IOS XE router does not have control plane protection implemented, this is a finding.

Fix text

Implement control plane protection by classifying traffic types based on importance and configure filters to restrict and rate limit the traffic directed to and processed by the route processor according to each class. The configuration would look similar to the one below: class-map match-any CoPP_UNDESIRABLE match access-group name CoPP_UNDESIRABLE class-map match-any CoPP_IMPORTANT match access-group name CoPP_IMPORTANT match protocol arp class-map match-all CoPP_DEFAULT match access-group name CoPP_DEFAULT policy-map CONTROL_PLANE_POLICY class CoPP_CRITICAL police 512000 8000 conform-action transmit exceed-action transmit class CoPP_IMPORTANT police 256000 4000 conform-action transmit exceed-action drop class CoPP_NORMAL police 128000 2000 conform-action transmit exceed-action drop class CoPP_UNDESIRABLE police 8000 1000 conform-action drop exceed-action drop class CoPP_DEFAULT police 64000 1000 conform-action transmit exceed-action drop

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