Advanced Malware Protection

The Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) integration equips routing and Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN platforms to provide protection and visibility to cover all stages of the malware lifecycle:

  • Before: Hardening the network border with firewall rules

  • During: Blocking malware based on File Reputation and IPS Signatures

  • After:

    • Using File Notifications to represent breaches that occurred;

    • Retrospectively detecting malware and providing automatic reporting;

    • During: Blocking malware based on File Reputation and IPS Signatures

    • Using advanced file analysis capabilities for detection and deeper insight into unknown files in a network

Table 1. Feature History

Release

Description

Cisco SD-WAN 19.1

Feature introduced. The Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) integration equips routing and Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN platforms to provide protection and visibility to cover all stages of the malware lifecycle.

Overview of Advanced Malware Protection

The Cisco Advanced Malware Protection is composed of three processes:

  • File Reputation: The process of using a 256-bit Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA256) signature to compare the file against the Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) cloud server and access its threat intelligence information. The response can be Clean, Unknown, or Malicious. If the response is Unknown, and if File Analysis is configured, the file is automatically submitted for further analysis.


    Note

    The maximum file size that will be inspected by AMP is 10 MB.

    Note

    File Reputation supports the following file types: ACCDB, ALZ, AMF, AMR, ARJ, ASF, AUTORUN, BINARY_DATA, BINHEX, BMP, BZ, CPIO_CRC, CPIO_NEWC, CPIO_ODC, DICM, DMG, DMP, EGG, EICAR, ELF, EPS, FFMPEG, FLAC, FLIC, FLV, GIF, GZ, HLP, HWP, ICO, IMG_PCT, ISHIELD_MSI, ISO, IVR, JAR, JARPACK, JPEG, LHA, M3U, MACHO, MAIL, MAYA, MDB, MDI, MIDI, MKV, MNY, MOV, MP3, MP4, MPEG, MSCAB, MSCHM, MSOLE2, MSWORD_MAC5, MSZDD, MWL, NEW_OFFICE, NTHIVE, OGG, OLD_TAR, ONE, PCAP, PDF, PGD, PLS, PNG, POSIX_TAR, PSD, PST, RA, RAR, REC, REG, RIFF, RIFX, RIM, RMF, RPM, RTF, S3M, SAMI, SCRENC, SIS, SIT, SMIL, SWF, SYLKc, SYMANTEC, TIFF, TNEF, TORRENT, UUENCODED, VMDK, WAV, WEBM, WMF, WP, WRI, XLW, XPS, ZIP, ZIP_ENC, 7Z, 9XHIVE.

  • File Analysis: The process of submitting an Unknown file to the Threat Grid (TG) cloud for detonation in a sandbox environment. During detonation, the sandbox captures artifacts and observes behaviors of the file, then gives the file an overall score. Based on the observations and score, Threat Grid may change the threat response to Clean or Malicious. Threat Grid’s findings are reported back to the AMP cloud, so that all AMP customers will be protected against newly discovered malware. File Analysis supports a maximum file size of 10MB.


    Note

    File analysis requires a separate Threat Grid account. For information about purchasing a Threat Grid account, contact your Cisco representative.

  • Retrospective: By maintaining information about files even after they are downloaded, we can report on files that were determined to be malicious after they were downloaded. The disposition of the files could change based on the new threat intelligence gained by the AMP cloud. This re-classification will generate automatic retrospective notifications.

Configure and Apply an Advanced Malware Policy

To configure and apply an Advanced Malware Policy to a Cisco IOS XE Catalyst SD-WAN device, do the following:

Before you Begin


Note

A NAT direct internet access route is necessary to apply Advanced Malware Protection Policy.

Configure Threat Grid API Key

To perform file analysis, you must configure your Threat Grid API key:

Procedure

Step 1

Log into your Cisco AMP Threat Grid dashboard, and choose your account details.

Step 2

Under your Account Details, an API key may already be visible if you've created one already. If you have not, click Generate New API Key.

Your API key should then be visible under User Details > API Key.

Step 3

From the Cisco SD-WAN Manager menu, choose Configuration > Security.

Step 4

In the Security screen, click the Custom Options drop-down menu and choose Threat Grid API Key.

Step 5

In the Manage Threat Grid API key dialog box, perform these steos:

  1. Choose a region from the Region drop-down menu.

  2. Enter the API key in the Key field.

  3. Click Add.

  4. Click Save Changes.

Configuring an Advanced Malware Protection Policy

To configure an Advanced Malware Protection policy:

Procedure

Step 1

From the Cisco SD-WAN Manager menu, choose Configuration > Security.

Step 2

Click Add Security Policy. The Add Security Policy wizard opens and various use-case scenarios display.

Step 3

In Add Security Policy, choose Direct Internet Access and then click Proceed.

Step 4

In the Add Security Policy wizard, click Next as needed to choose Advanced Malware Protection.

Step 5

From Advanced Malware Protection, click Add Advanced Malware Protection Policy in the drop-down menu.

Step 6

Choose Create New. The Add Advanced Malware Protection screen displays.

Step 7

In the Policy Name field, enter a name for the malware policy. The name can be up to 128 characters and can contain only alphanumeric characters.

Step 8

Ensure Match All VPN is chosen. Choose Match All VPN if you want to apply the policy to all the VPNs, or choose Custom VPN Configuration to input the specific VPNs.

Step 9

From the AMP Cloud Region drop down menu, choose a global region.

Step 10

From the Alerts Log Level drop down menu, choose a severity level (Critical, Warning, or Info).

Note: Because the Info severity level generates multiple notifications and can affect system performance, this level should be configured only for testing or debugging and not for real-time traffic.

Step 11

Click File Analysis to enable Threat Grid (TG) file analysis.

Note

 

Before you can perform this step, configure a threat grid API key as described in Configure Threat Grid API Key.

Note

 

File Analysis requires a separate Threat Grid license.

Step 12

From the TG Cloud Region drop down menu, choose a global region.

Note

 

Configure the Threat Grid API Key by clicking on Manage API Key or as described in Configure Threat Grid API Key

Step 13

From the File Types List drop down menu, choose the file types that you want to be analyzed.

Step 14

From the Alerts Log Level drop down menu, choose a severity level (Critical, Warning, or Info).

Step 15

Click Target VPNs to choose the target service VPNs or all VPNs, and then click Add VPN.

Step 16

Click Save Changes. The Policy Summary screen displays.

Step 17

Click Next.

Apply a Security Policy to a Device

To apply a security policy to a device:

  1. From the Cisco SD-WAN Manager menu, choose Configuration > Templates.

  2. Click Device Templates.


    Note

    In Cisco vManage Release 20.7.1 and earlier releases, Device Templates is called Device.

  3. From the Create Template drop-down list, choose From Feature Template.

  4. From the Device Model drop-down list, choose one of the devices.

  5. Click Additional Templates.

    The Additional Templates section is displayed.

  6. From the Security Policy drop-down list, choose the name of the policy you configured previously.

  7. Click Create to apply the security policy to a device.

  8. Click … next to the device template that you created.

  9. Click Attach Devices.

  10. Choose the devices to which you want to attach the device template.

  11. Click Attach.


Note
If you are migrating from older releases to Cisco IOS XE Release 17.2 or later with Application lists and the zone-based firewall that is configured in Cisco SD-WAN Manager, you must first remove the security template from the base template and push the base template. Thereafter, reattach the security template and then push the template to the device.

Note

When a Zone based firewall template in attached to a Cisco IOS XE Catalyst SD-WAN device running on Cisco IOS XE Catalyst SD-WAN Release 17.6.1a or later, there may be an increase in time for completion of tasks. This is due to the updates in the software version of Cisco vManage Release 20.6.1.

Modify an Advanced Malware Protection Policy

To modify an Advanced Malware Protection policy, do the following:

  1. From the Cisco SD-WAN Manager menu, choose Configuration > Security.

  2. In the Security screen, click the Custom Options drop-down menu , choose Policies/Profiles, and then choose Advanced Malware Protection.

  3. For the desired policy you want to modify, click ... and choose Edit.

  4. Modify the policy as required and click Save Advanced Malware Protection Policy.

Delete an Advanced Malware Protection Policy

To delete an Advanced Malware Protection policy, you must first detach the policy from the security policy:

  1. From the Cisco SD-WAN Manager menu, choose Configuration > Security.

  2. Detach the AMP policy from the security policy as follows:

    1. For the security policy that contains the AMP policy, click ... and choose Edit.

      The Policy Summary page is displayed.

    2. Click Advanced Malware Protection.

    3. For the policy that you want to delete, click ... and choose Detach.

    4. Click Save Policy Changes.

  3. To delete the AMP policy, perform these steps:

    1. In the Security screen, click the Custom Options drop-down menu , choose Policies/Profiles, and then choose Advanced Malware Protection

    2. For the policy that you want to delete, click ... and choose Delete.

    3. Click OK.

Monitor Advanced Malware Protection

You can monitor Advanced Malware Protection from the Device Dashboard by using the following steps.

Procedure

Step 1

From the Cisco SD-WAN Manager menu, choose Monitor > Devices, and choose a device.

Cisco vManage Release 20.6.x and earlier: From the Cisco SD-WAN Manager menu, choose Monitor > Network, and choose a device.

Step 2

Under Security Monitoring, click Advanced Malware Protection in the left pane.

Troubleshoot Advanced Malware Protection

Malware in POP3 Account

If Cisco United Threat Defense (UTD) detects malware on a POP3 email server, UTD prevents email clients from downloading the email message with the malware, and then resets the connection between the email server and client. This prevents downloading any email after detection of the malware. Even later attempts to download email from the server fail if the problematic file remains on the server.

To resolve this, an administrator must remove the file(s) identified as malware from the server, to enable a new session between the server and client.

Rekey the Device Threat Grid API Key

To rekey the device Threat Grid API key from the Maintenance screen:

Procedure

Step 1

From the Cisco SD-WAN Manager menu, choose Maintenance > Security.

Step 2

Click Advanced Malware Protection.

Step 3

Choose the device or devices that you want to rekey.

Step 4

Choose Action > API Rekey.

Configure Advanced Malware Protection for Unified Security Policy

You can create an advanced malware protection policy specifically for use in a unified security policy. When created, the advanced malware protection policy is included in the advanced inspection profile and applied to the unified security policy for implementation in Cisco IOS XE Catalyst SD-WAN devices.

To configure advanced malware protection for a unified security policy, perform the following steps:

  1. From the Cisco SD-WAN Manager menu, choose Configuration > Security.

  2. Click Custom Options.

  3. Click Policies/Profiles.

  4. Click Advanced Malware Protection in the left pane.

  5. Click Add Advanced Malware Protection Policy, and choose Create New.

  6. Click Policy Mode to enable the unified mode. This implies that you are creating an advanced malware protection policy for use in the unified security policy.


    Note

    • Target VPNs are not applicable for the advanced malware protection used in a unified security policy.

    • You can enable Policy Mode only when creating advanced malware protection policies. You cannot configure the unified mode once the policy is saved.

  7. Enter a policy name in the Policy Name field.

  8. From the AMP Cloud Region drop-down list, choose a global region.

  9. From the Alerts Log Level drop-down list, choose a severity level (Critical, Warning, or Info).


    Note

    Because the Info severity level generates multiple notifications and can affect system performance, this level should be configured only for testing or debugging, and not for real-time traffic.

  10. Click File Analysis to enable Threat Grid file analysis.


    Note

    Before you can perform Step 10, configure a threat grid API key as described in Configure Threat Grid API Key.

    File Analysis requires a separate Threat Grid license.

  11. From the TG Cloud Region drop-down list, choose a global region.


    Note

    Configure the Threat Grid API Key by clicking Manage API Key or as described in Configure Threat Grid API Key.

    From the File Types List drop-down list, choose the file types that you want to be analyzed.

  12. From the Alerts Log Level drop-down list, choose a severity level (Critical, Warning, or Info).

  13. Click Save Advanced Malware Protection Policy.