Title

The Cisco ACI must prevent the installation of patches, service packs, or application components without verification the software component has been digitally signed using a certificate that is recognized and approved by the organization. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Changes to any software components can have significant effects on the overall security of the Cisco ACI. Verifying software components have been digitally signed using a certificate that is recognized and approved by the organization ensures the software has not been tampered with and has been provided by a trusted vendor. Accordingly, patches, service packs, or application components must be signed with a certificate recognized and approved by the organization. Verifying the authenticity of the software prior to installation validates the integrity of the patch or upgrade received from a vendor. This ensures the software has not been tampered with and has been provided by a trusted vendor. Self-signed certificates are disallowed by this requirement. The device should not have to verify the software again. This requirement does not mandate DOD certificates for this purpose; however, the certificate used to verify the software must be from an approved CA.

Check Content

Verify the SSP requires a process for verifying the checksum for software download and install ISO files. If a local documented process does not require that the checksum value of any software download be verified, this is a finding.

Fix Text

1. Navigate to the DOD repository or Cisco download page. Hover over the download link and a small window will pop up. This window will contain information about that particular download. The information includes the MD5 and SHA512 checksum value of that file. 2. Use a hash algorithm tool to generate the MD5 or SHA512 to establish the unique checksum of the file downloaded. 3. If the checksum matches the value found from the source repository, proceed with the update.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-271938r1064336_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-271938

Group Title: SRG-APP-000131-NDM-000243

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.