Hardening Cisco Routers (O'Reilly Networking)

Hardening Cisco Routers (O'Reilly Networking)
by Thomas Akin

Hardening Cisco Routers (O'Reilly Networking)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Thomas Akin
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2002-02
ISBN: 0596001665
Number of pages: 190
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.

Book Reviews of Hardening Cisco Routers (O'Reilly Networking)

Book Review: Great Thing in a Small Package
Summary: 5 Stars

Read it leisurely on Monday & Tuesday night. Write out your action plans & change controls on Wednesday & Thursday. Have a more secure network on Friday.

I bought this book with the Cisco Cookbook, and found this to be one of the most important books in a network admin's library. This is the security book that doesn't get mired down in endless pages of white papers. It simply points out major security flaws and holes, and why they should be covered.

What good is an Access List if you don't log what is or isn't stopping?
What good are your logs if you don't have timestamps backed up by NTP time sources?
What good is a complex password if 10 admins know it, and no one has individual logins?

The problems and solutions are quickly addressed with enough information to explain to your boss why this needs to be done. Then use the Cisco Cookbook or other guide to fine-tune your own solution that fits your needs.

Summary of Hardening Cisco Routers (O'Reilly Networking)

As a network administrator, auditor or architect, you know the importance of securing your network and finding security solutions you can implement quickly. This succinct book departs from other security literature by focusing exclusively on ways to secure Cisco routers, rather than the entire network. The rational is simple: If the router protecting a network is exposed to hackers, then so is the network behind it. "Hardening Cisco Routers" is a reference for protecting the protectors. Included are the following topics:

The importance of router security and where routers fit into an overall security plan

Different router configurations for various versions of Cisco's IOS

Standard ways to access a Cisco router and the security implications of each

Password and privilege levels in Cisco routers

Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) control

Router warning banner use (as recommended by the FBI)

Unnecessary protocols and services commonly run on Cisco routers

SNMP security

Anti-spoofing

Protocol security for RIP, OSPF, EIGRP, NTP, and BGP

Logging violations

Incident response

Physical security

Written by Thomas Akin, an experienced Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Cisco Academic Instructor (CCAI), the book is well organized, emphasizing practicality and a hands-on approach. At the end of each chapter, Akin includes a Checklist that summarizes the hardening techniques discussed in the chapter. The Checklists help you double-check the configurations you have been instructed to make, and serve as quick references for future security procedures.

Concise and to the point, "HardeningCisco Routers" supplies you with all the tools necessary to turn a potential vulnerability into a strength. In an area that is otherwise poorly documented, this is the one book that will help you make your Cisco routers rock solid.


To harden a router is to render it more heavily defended and more difficult to attack. Because routers (by definition) serve as points of entry into your network, it makes sense to devote extra effort to their security. Hardening Cisco Routers shows how to make adjustments to the configurations of routers from Cisco Systems to improve their resistance to attack, particularly external attack. This is essentially a book of specialized Internetwork Operating System (IOS) commands, as well as explanations of their behavior. It'll appeal to the router administrator--employed either by an organization's internal network staff, an outside consultancy, or a service provider--who wants to know which IOS commands he or she should add to routers' configuration files to tighten their security without a lot of hassle.

The great thing about this book is that you can approach it in either of two ways. If you just want to clamp down on your routers' security weaknesses as soon as possible, you can begin with the checklists at the end of each chapter (each of which focuses on a particular area, like SMTP) or the big one in an appendix, which is comprehensive. These checklists include both "how" and "why" information, as exemplified by "Disable ICMP broadcasts with the no ip directed-broadcast command." If you want more information on the big picture, or want to prepare for a specific kind of attack, read the individual chapters for detailed advice on how to set IOS to behave as you want. --David Wall

Topics covered: Internetwork Operating System (IOS) commands you can use to protect Cisco Systems routers from a variety of attacks. Specialized sections deal with security assessment, auditing, access control, privileges, optional services, and the legal importance of your login banners' contents.

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