- About this Guide
-
- Information About Cisco Unified Communications Features
- Using the Cisco Unified Communication Wizard
- Configuring the Cisco Phone Proxy
- Configuring the TLS Proxy for Encrypted Voice Inspection
- Configuring Cisco Mobility Advantage
- Configuring Cisco Unified Presence
- Configuring Cisco Unified Communications Intercompany Media Engine
- Index
Using Protection Tools
This chapter describes some of the many tools available to protect your network and includes the following sections:
Preventing IP Spoofing
This section lets you enable Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding on an interface. Unicast RPF guards against IP spoofing (a packet uses an incorrect source IP address to obscure its true source) by ensuring that all packets have a source IP address that matches the correct source interface according to the routing table.
Normally, the ASA only looks at the destination address when determining where to forward the packet. Unicast RPF instructs the ASA to also look at the source address; this is why it is called Reverse Path Forwarding. For any traffic that you want to allow through the ASA, the ASA routing table must include a route back to the source address. See RFC 2267 for more information.
For outside traffic, for example, the ASA can use the default route to satisfy the Unicast RPF protection. If traffic enters from an outside interface, and the source address is not known to the routing table, the ASA uses the default route to correctly identify the outside interface as the source interface.
If traffic enters the outside interface from an address that is known to the routing table, but is associated with the inside interface, then the ASA drops the packet. Similarly, if traffic enters the inside interface from an unknown source address, the ASA drops the packet because the matching route (the default route) indicates the outside interface.
Unicast RPF is implemented as follows:
- ICMP packets have no session, so each packet is checked.
- UDP and TCP have sessions, so the initial packet requires a reverse route lookup. Subsequent packets arriving during the session are checked using an existing state maintained as part of the session. Non-initial packets are checked to ensure they arrived on the same interface used by the initial packet.
Configuring the Fragment Size
By default, the ASA allows up to 24 fragments per IP packet, and up to 200 fragments awaiting reassembly. You might need to let fragments on your network if you have an application that routinely fragments packets, such as NFS over UDP. However, if you do not have an application that fragments traffic, we recommend that you do not allow fragments through the ASA. Fragmented packets are often used as DoS attacks.
To set disallow fragments, enter the following command:
Enter an interface name if you want to prevent fragmentation on a specific interface. By default, this command applies to all interfaces.
Blocking Unwanted Connections
If you know that a host is attempting to attack your network (for example, system log messages show an attack), then you can block (or shun) connections based on the source IP address. All existing connections and new connections are blocked until you remove the shun.
Note If you have an IPS that monitors traffic, such as an AIP SSM, then the IPS can shun connections automatically.
To shun a connection manually, perform the following steps:
Step 1 If necessary, view information about the connection by entering the following command:
The ASA shows information about each connection, such as the following:
Step 2 To shun connections from the source IP address, enter the following command:
If you enter only the source IP address, then all future connections are shunned; existing connections remain active.
To drop an existing connection, as well as blocking future connections from the source IP address, enter the destination IP address, source and destination ports, and the protocol. By default, the protocol is 0 for IP. Note that specifying the additional parameters is a convenient way to also drop a specific current connection; the shun, however, remains in place for all future connections from the source IP address, regardless of destination parameters.
For multiple context mode, you can enter this command in the admin context, and by specifying a VLAN ID that is assigned to an interface in other contexts, you can shun the connection in other contexts.
Step 3 To remove the shun, enter the following command:
Configuring IP Audit for Basic IPS Support
The IP audit feature provides basic IPS support for the ASA that does not have an AIP SSM. It supports a basic list of signatures, and you can configure the ASA to perform one or more actions on traffic that matches a signature.
This section includes the following topics:
Configuring IP Audit
To enable IP audit, perform the following steps:
Step 1 To define an IP audit policy for informational signatures, enter the following command:
Where alarm generates a system message showing that a packet matched a signature, drop drops the packet, and reset drops the packet and closes the connection. If you do not define an action, then the default action is to generate an alarm.
Step 2 To define an IP audit policy for attack signatures, enter the following command:
Where alarm generates a system message showing that a packet matched a signature, drop drops the packet, and reset drops the packet and closes the connection. If you do not define an action, then the default action is to generate an alarm.
Step 3 To assign the policy to an interface, enter the following command:
Step 4 To disable signatures, or for more information about signatures, see the ip audit signature command in the command reference.
IP Audit Signature List
Table 28-1 lists supported signatures and system message numbers.