Arista MLS DCS-7000 Series L2S Security Technical Implementation Guide

Information flow control regulates where information is allowed to travel within a network and between interconnected networks. The flow of all network traffic must be monitored and controlled so it does not introduce any unacceptable risk to the network infrastructure or data. A few examples of flow control restrictions include: keeping export-controlled information from being transmitted in the clear to the Internet and blocking information marked as classified but which is being transported to an unapproved destination. Information flow control policies and enforcement mechanisms are commonly employed by organizations to control the flow of information between designated sources and destinations (e.g., networks, individuals, devices) within information systems. Enforcement occurs, for example, in boundary protection devices (e.g., gateways, routers, guards, encrypted tunnels, and firewalls) that employ rule sets or establish configuration settings that restrict information system services, provide a packet filtering capability based on header information, or provide a message filtering capability based on message content (e.g., implementing key word searches or using document characteristics).

Information flow control regulates where information is allowed to travel within a network and between interconnected networks. The flow of all network traffic must be monitored and controlled so it does not introduce any unacceptable risk to the network infrastructure or data. Examples of flow control restrictions include blocking outside traffic claiming to be from within the organization, and not passing any web requests to the Internet not from the internal web proxy. Additional examples of restrictions include: keeping export-controlled information from being transmitted in the clear to the Internet, and blocking information marked as classified, but which is being transported to an unapproved destination. Information flow control policies and enforcement mechanisms are commonly employed by organizations to control the flow of information between designated sources and destinations (e.g., networks, individuals, and devices) within information systems. Enforcement occurs, for example, in boundary protection devices (e.g., gateways, routers, guards, encrypted tunnels, and firewalls) that employ rule sets or establish configuration settings that restrict information system services, provide a packet filtering capability based on header information, or provide a message filtering capability based on message content (e.g., implementing key word searches or using document characteristics).

Without identifying devices, unidentified or unknown devices may be introduced, thereby facilitating malicious activity. For distributed architectures (e.g., service-oriented architectures), the decisions regarding the validation of identification claims may be made by services separate from the services acting on those decisions. In such situations, it is necessary to provide the identification decisions (as opposed to the actual identifiers) to the services that need to act on those decisions. This requirement applies to applications that connect either locally, remotely, or through a network to an endpoint device (including, but not limited to, workstations, printers, servers (outside a datacenter), VoIP Phones, and VTC CODECs). Gateways and SOA applications are examples of where this requirement would apply.

Without authenticating devices, unidentified or unknown devices may be introduced, thereby facilitating malicious activity on the network. Bidirectional authentication provides stronger safeguards to validate the identity of other devices for connections that are of greater risk (e.g., remote connections). Bidirectional authentication solutions include, but are not limited to, IEEE 802.1x and Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) and Radius server with EAP-Transport Layer Security (TLS) authentication. A network connection is any connection with a device that communicates through a network (e.g., local area network, wide area network, or the Internet). Authentication must use a form of cryptography to ensure a high level of trust and authenticity.

Without authenticating devices, unidentified or unknown devices may be introduced, thereby facilitating malicious activity. For distributed architectures (e.g., service-oriented architectures), the decisions regarding the validation of authentication claims may be made by services separate from the services acting on those decisions. In such situations, it is necessary to provide authentication decisions (as opposed to the actual authenticators) to the services that need to act on those decisions. This requirement applies to applications that connect either locally, remotely, or through a network to an endpoint device (including, but not limited to, workstations, printers, servers (outside a datacenter), VoIP Phones, and VTC CODECs). Gateways and SOA applications are examples of where this requirement would apply. Device authentication is a solution enabling an organization to manage devices. It is an additional layer of authentication ensuring only specific pre-authorized devices can access the system.