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Cisco Configuration Auditing & Security Best Practices

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Complex modern networks can have hard to define external boundaries with the onset of the cloud and remote devices. As network architecture has become more complex, so too has the threat and vulnerabilities organizations face.

Research from Forrester shows that 80% of network traffic is inside the perimeter. This means firewalls alone cannot solve today's most urgent security priorities. The security of routers and switches is therefore as important as firewall security.

Network owners must ensure that they configure these devices correctly to maintain a secure network. Checking configurations against compliance standards is essential to strengthen security posture and evidence compliance.

Cisco Device Configuration Auditing

Cisco routers, switches and firewalls form a vital part of networks. For these devices, vulnerability assessments and network configuration assessments are fundamental practices to ensure their security. These assessments make sure that devices are configured correctly and can help prevent breaches.

Misconfigurations of any type, from deliberate action to accidental errors, can result in critical vulnerabilities. These then pose significant risk to the network, its data, applications and ultimately an organization’s security.

With networks changing on a daily basis, it is essential to quickly and accurately identify any devices that are misconfigured or vulnerable to attack. Regular checks for vulnerabilities and network misconfigurations are key.

Carrying out vulnerability assessments can ensure that devices such as Cisco routers, switches, and firewalls are set up securely. They also allow network owners to monitor for configuration drift that leaves the network exposed. This can help prevent security breaches or lessen the impact if they do occur.

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Cisco Configuration Network Security:

How router, switch and firewall configuration can impact your network security

Individuals, companies and governments use Cisco products to create solutions that allow them to:

  • Increase productivity,
  • Improve customer satisfaction and
  • Strengthen competitive advantage.

Both small enterprises and large businesses use Cisco routers, switches and firewalls to protect their digital assets and networks. You can find them in mission critical environments and protecting CDEs. So, network owners must configure them to meet the highest possible security standards.

Organizations should:

  • Regularly check configurations against trusted risk management frameworks;
  • Harden devices according to best practice;
  • Proactively check device settings for any vulnerabilities within the network; and
  • Review devices for out-of-date security policies. 

Failure to do this could mean that networks are an easier target for attackers. Misconfigurations and vulnerabilities provide threat actors with known pathways to alter configurations and scale attacks. And when a configuration is changed, rechecking that the changes have not impacted the security of the network. So, it is vital that assessors have the capability to accurately assess network security and effectively evidence compliance across Cisco routers, switches and firewalls.

Vulnerability management for Cisco devices with Nipper

Nipper provides accurate, on-demand router, switch and firewall configuration security assessments. It allows you to quickly and accurately determine where networks fail to adhere to vendor hardening guides.

The assessments can also check for software vulnerabilities against Cisco PSIRT, as well as CIS Benchmarks and NIST NVD. Each assessment produces a report of in-depth findings. Nipper prioritizes the findings automatically by risk criticality and ease of remediation. And there is a summary of non-compliance findings displayed at the top of easy-to-navigate reports.

The PSIRT report within Nipper is designed to accurately identify known vulnerabilities in Cisco devices by cross-referencing risk databases. This report takes vulnerability data for a specified version directly from Cisco, providing greater accuracy of vulnerability detection and results in time savings when auditing.

Find out more about how Nipper can help

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Assure your Cisco devices’ security with Nipper Enterprise

Network infrastructure devices, such as Cisco routers, switches and firewalls - are increasingly the target of state sponsored actors. Exploiting vulnerabilities in these devices on IT and OT networks allows attackers to launch a range of attacks such as pervasive ransomware. So, ensuring that vulnerabilities are identified and remediated with risk-based prioritization is vital to proactively minimize network exposure.

Nipper Enterprise allows network owners to assess all device configurations and identify vulnerabilities, across the network, to determine security and/or compliance posture baselines. It is also capable of providing visibility of every configuration change on the network, in near-real-time, and can proactively assess those changes to determine network exposure risk. These are the two key next-gen risk based vulnerability management capabilities that the solution delivers:

  • on-demand posture assessments and
  • near-real time exposure monitoring.

This allows network owners to compare planned versus unplanned configuration changes and quickly identify unauthorized changes and ineffective operational changes, in near real-time.

Nipper Enterprise can also proactively monitor for configuration drift and known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs) and associated exposure to active attack vectors using the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

The solution further enables NOC teams to expedite risk-prioritized vulnerability remediation with device specific guidance and proactively confirm hardening activities have been carried out.

Discover how Nipper Enterprise can provide risk-based vulnerability management capabilities.

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Cisco Technical Partner

Titania is proud to be a member of Cisco's Technical Partnership. This partnership with Cisco allows us to deliver the informed view of network risk that is a fundamental part of Nipper solutions.

We continue to develop solutions that provide up-to-date coverage for the latest versions of supported Cisco devices. For more information on supported devices and those on our future roadmap, including devices running Cisco FirePOWER, ASA, NX-OS and ISO products, please get in touch.

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