AOS must be configured to authenticate SNMP messages using a FIPS-validated Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC).

Without authenticating devices, unidentified or unknown devices may be introduced, thereby facilitating malicious activity. Bidirectional authentication provides stronger safeguards to validate the identity of other devices for connections that are of greater risk.

A local connection is any connection with a device communicating without the use of a network. A network connection is any connection with a device that communicates through a network (e.g., local area or wide area network, internet). A remote connection is any connection with a device communicating through an external network (e.g., the internet).

Because of the challenges of applying this requirement on a large scale, organizations are encouraged to only apply the requirement to those limited number (and type) of devices that truly need to support this capability.

Verify the AOS configuration with the following command: show snmp user-table

If the configured SNMP user(s) are not using SHA, this is a finding.

Configure AOS with the following commands: configure terminal snmp-server user <SNMP user> auth-prot sha <authentication password> priv-prot aes <privacy password> write memory