Title

The IPsec VPN Gateway must renegotiate the security association after 8 hours or less, or an organization-defined period. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

The IPsec SA and its corresponding key will expire either after the number of seconds or amount of traffic volume has exceeded the configured limit. A new SA is negotiated before the lifetime threshold of the existing SA is reached to ensure that a new SA is ready for use when the old one expires. The longer the lifetime of the IPsec SA, the longer the lifetime of the session key used to protect IP traffic. The SA is less secure with a longer lifetime because an attacker has a greater opportunity to collect traffic encrypted by the same key and subject it to cryptanalysis. However, a shorter lifetime causes IPsec peers to renegotiate Phase II more often resulting in the expenditure of additional resources. Specify the lifetime (in seconds) of an Internet Key Exchange (IKE) security association (SA). When the SA expires, it is replaced by a new SA, the security parameter index (SPI), or terminated if the peer cannot be contacted for renegotiation.

Check Content

Verify the IPsec VPN Gateway renegotiates the security association after 8 hours or less, or an organization-defined period. If the IPsec VPN Gateway does not renegotiate the security association after 8 hours or less, or an organization-defined period, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure the IPsec VPN Gateway to renegotiate the security association after 8 hours or less, or an organization-defined period.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-207237r856709_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-207237

Group Title: SRG-NET-000337

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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