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← Back to Cisco NX OS Switch RTR Security Technical Implementation Guide

V-221131

CAT II (Medium)

The Cisco switch must be configured to enforce a Quality-of-Service (QoS) policy to limit the effects of packet flooding denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

Rule ID

SV-221131r999740_rule

STIG

Cisco NX OS Switch RTR Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V3R4

CCIs

CCI-001095

Discussion

DoS is a condition when a resource is not available for legitimate users. Packet flooding distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are referred to as volumetric attacks and have the objective of overloading a network or circuit to deny or seriously degrade performance, which denies access to the services that normally traverse the network or circuit. Volumetric attacks have become relatively easy to launch using readily available tools such as Low Orbit Ion Cannon or botnets. Measures to mitigate the effects of a successful volumetric attack must be taken to ensure that sufficient capacity is available for mission-critical traffic. Managing capacity may include, for example, establishing selected network usage priorities or quotas and enforcing them using rate limiting, Quality of Service (QoS), or other resource reservation control methods. These measures may also mitigate the effects of sudden decreases in network capacity that are the result of accidental or intentional physical damage to telecommunications facilities (such as cable cuts or weather-related outages).

Check Content

Step 1: Verify that a class map has been configured for the Scavenger class as shown in the example below:

class-map match-all SCAVENGER
 match ip dscp cs1

Step 2: Verify that the policy map includes the SCAVENGER class with low priority as shown in the following example below:

policy-map QOS_POLICY
 class CONTROL_PLANE
 priority percent 10
 class C2_VOICE
 priority percent 10
 class VOICE
 priority percent 15
 class VIDEO
 bandwidth percent 25
 class PREFERRED_DATA
 bandwidth percent 25
class SCAVENGER
 bandwidth percent 5
 class class-default
 bandwidth percent 10

Note: Traffic out of profile must be marked at the customer access layer or CE egress edge.

If the switch is not configured to enforce a QoS policy to limit the effects of packet flooding DoS attacks, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Step 1: Configure a class map for the SCAVENGER class.

SW1(config)# class-map match-all SCAVENGER
SW1(config-cmap)# match ip dscp cs1

Step 2: Add the SCAVENGER class to the policy map as shown in the example below:

SW1(config)# policy-map QOS_POLICY
SW1(config-pmap-c)# no class class-default
SW1(config-pmap)# class SCAVENGER
SW1(config-pmap-c)# bandwidth percent 5
SW1(config-pmap-c)# class class-default
SW1(config-pmap-c)# bandwidth percent 10
SW1(config-pmap-c)# end