Firepower Management Center Configuration Guide, Version 6.0.1

About Security Intelligence

As an early line of defense against malicious internet content, Security Intelligence uses reputation intelligence to quickly block connections to or from IP addresses, URLs, and domain names. This is called Security Intelligence block listing.

Security Intelligence is the first phase of access control, before the system performs more resource-intensive evaluation. Block listing improves performance by quickly excluding traffic that does not require inspection.

Note

You cannot use a Block list to block fastpathed traffic. 8000 Series fastpathing occurs before Security Intelligence filtering. Fastpathed traffic bypasses all further evaluation, including Security Intelligence.

Although you can configure custom Block lists, Cisco provides access to regularly updated intelligence feeds. Sites representing security threats such as malware, spam, botnets, and phishing appear and disappear faster than you can update and deploy custom configurations.

You can refine Security Intelligence Block listing with Do Not Block lists and monitor-only Block lists. These mechanisms exempt traffic from being blocked by a Block list, but do not automatically trust or fastpath matching traffic. Traffic added to a Do Not Block list or monitored at the Security Intelligence stage is intentionally subject to further analysis with the rest of access control.

Best Practices for Security Intelligence

Configure your access control policies to block threats detected by Cisco-provided Security Intelligence feeds. See Configuration Example: Security Intelligence Blocking.
If you want to supplement the Cisco-provided Security Intelligence feeds with custom threat data, or manually block emerging threats:
- For IP addresses, use custom Security Intelligence lists and feeds, or Network objects or groups. To create these, see Security Intelligence Lists and Feeds and Network Objects, and their subtopics. To use them for Security Intelligence, see Configure Security Intelligence.
- For URLs and domains, use custom Security Intelligence lists and feeds, not objects or groups. See details at Manual URL Filtering Options.
- You can also add entries to a Block list from events. See Global and Domain Security Intelligence Lists.
To test new feeds, or for passive deployments, set the action from block to monitor only. See Security Intelligence Monitoring.
If you need to exclude specific sites or addresses from Security Intelligence blocking, see Override Security Intelligence Blocking.
System-provided Security Intelligence categories may change over time and without notification; you should plan to check periodically for changes, and modify your policies accordingly.
You should also configure URL filtering, a separate feature with separate licensing requirements, for further protection against malicious sites. See URL Filtering.

License Requirements for Security Intelligence

FTD License

Threat

Classic License

Protection

Requirements and Prerequisites for Security Intelligence

Model Support

Any

Supported Domains

Any

User Roles

Admin
Access Admin
Network Admin

Security Intelligence Sources

System-provided feeds

Cisco provides access to regularly updated intelligence feeds for domains, URLs and IP addresses. For more information, see Security Intelligence Lists and Feeds.
Third-party feeds

Optionally, supplement Cisco-provided feeds with third-party reputation feeds, which are dynamic lists that the Firepower Management Center downloads from the internet on a regular basis. See Custom Security Intelligence Feeds.
Custom Block lists or feeds (or objects or groups)

Block specific IP addresses, URLs, or domain names using a manually-created list or feed (for IP addresses, you can also use network objects or groups.)

For example, if you become aware of malicious sites or addresses that are not yet blocked by a feed, add these sites to a custom Security Intelligence list and add this custom list to the Block list in the Security Intelligence tab of your access control policy, as described in Custom Security Intelligence Lists and Configure Security Intelligence.

For IP addresses, you can optionally use network objects rather than lists or feeds for this purpose; for information, see Network Objects. (For URLs, using lists and feeds is strongly recommended over other methods.)
Custom Do Not Block lists or feeds

Override Security Intelligence blocking for specific sites or addresses. See Override Security Intelligence Blocking.
Global Block lists (one each for Network, URL and DNS)

While reviewing events, you can immediately add an event's IP address, URL, or domain to the applicable Global Block List so that Security Intelligence will handle future traffic from that source. See Global and Domain Security Intelligence Lists.
Global Do Not Block lists (one each for Network, URL and DNS)

While reviewing events, you can immediately add an event's IP address, URL, or domain to the applicable Global Do Not Block List if you do not want Security Intelligence to block future traffic from that source. See Global and Domain Security Intelligence Lists.

Configure Security Intelligence

Each access control policy has Security Intelligence options. You can add network objects, URL objects and lists, and Security Intelligence feeds and lists to a Block list or Do Not Block list, and constrain any of these by security zone. You can also associate a DNS policy with your access control policy, and add domain names to a Block or Do Not Block list.

The number of objects in the Do Not Block lists plus the number in the Block lists cannot exceed 125 network objects, or 32767 URL objects and lists.

Note

The system builds a separate network map for each leaf domain. In a multidomain deployment, using literal IP addresses to constrain this configuration can have unexpected results. Using override-enabled objects allows descendant domain administrators to tailor Global configurations to their local environments.

Caution

From Security Intelligence in an access control policy, adding multiple objects to a Block or Do Not Block list, or deleting multiple objects, sometimes restarts the Snort process when you deploy configuration changes, temporarily interrupting traffic inspection. Whether traffic drops during this interruption or passes without further inspection depends on how the target device handles traffic. See Snort® Restart Traffic Behavior for more information. Note that whether the Snort process restarts can vary by device, depending on the memory available for inspection.

Before you begin

Tip: For guidance on minimum configuration recommendations, see also Configuration Example: Security Intelligence Blocking.
To ensure that all options are available to select, add at least one managed device to your management center.
In passive deployments, or if you want to set Security Intelligence filtering to monitor-only, enable logging; see Logging Connections with Security Intelligence.
Configure a DNS policy to take Security Intelligence action for domains. For more information, see DNS Policies.

Procedure

Step 1	In the access control policy editor, click Security Intelligence. If the controls are dimmed, settings are inherited from an ancestor policy, or you do not have permission to modify the configuration. If the configuration is unlocked, uncheck Inherit from base policy to enable editing.
Step 2	You have the following options: Click Networks to add network objects (IP addresses). Click URLs to add URL objects.
Step 3	Find the Available Objects you want to add to the Block or Do Not Block list. You have the following options: Search the available objects by typing in the Search by name or value field. Clear the search string by clicking Reload () or Clear (). If no existing list or feed meets your needs, click Add (), select New Network List or New URL List, and proceed as described in Creating Security Intelligence Feeds or Uploading New Security Intelligence Lists to the Firepower Management Center. If no existing object meets your needs, click Add (), select New Network Object or New URL Object, and proceed as described in Creating Network Objects. Security Intelligence ignores IP address blocks using a `/0` netmask.
Step 4	Choose one or more Available Objects to add.
Step 5	(Optional) Choose an Available Zone to constrain the selected objects by zone. You cannot constrain system-provided Security Intelligence lists by zone.
Step 6	Click Add to Do Not Block list or Add to Block list, or click and drag the selected objects to either list. To remove an object from a Block or Do Not Block list, click Delete () To remove multiple objects, choose the objects and right-click to Delete Selected.
Step 7	(Optional) Set objects on the Block list to monitor-only by right-clicking the object under Block List, then choosing Monitor-only (do not block). You cannot set system-provided global Security Intelligence lists to monitor only.
Step 8	Choose a DNS policy from the DNS Policy drop-down list.
Step 9	Click Save.

What to do next

Deploy configuration changes; see Deploy Configuration Changes.

Security Intelligence Options

Use the Security Intelligence tab in the access control policy editor to configure network (IP address) and URL Security Intelligence, and to associate the access control policy with a DNS policy in which you have configured Security Intelligence for domains.

Available Objects

Available objects include:

Security Intelligence categories populated by the system-provided feed.

For details, see Security Intelligence Categories.
System-provided Global Block and Do Not Block lists.

For descriptions, see Security Intelligence Sources.
Security Intelligence lists and feeds that you create under Object > Object Management > Security Intelligence.

For descriptions, see Security Intelligence Sources.
Network and URL objects and groups that are configured on the respective pages under Object > Object Management. These are different from the Security Intelligence objects in the previous bullet.

For details about network objects, see Network Objects. (For URLs, use Security Intelligence lists or feeds rather than objects or groups.)

Available Zones

Except for the system-provided Global lists, you can constrain Security Intelligence filtering by zone.

For example: To improve performance, you may want to target enforcement. As a more specific example, you can block spam only for a security zone that handles email traffic.

To enforce Security Intelligence filtering for an object on multiple zones, you must add the object to the Block or Do Not Block list separately for each zone.

DNS Policy

In order to match DNS traffic using Security Intelligence, you must select a DNS policy for your Security Intelligence configuration.

Using Block or Do Not Block lists, or monitoring traffic based on a DNS list or feed, also requires that you:

Configure DNS Security Intelligence lists and feeds. See Security Intelligence Lists and Feeds.
Create a DNS policy. See Creating Basic DNS Policies for more information.
Configure DNS rules that reference your DNS lists or feeds. See Creating and Editing DNS Rules for more information.
Because you deploy the DNS policy as part of your access control policy, you must associate both policies. See DNS Policy Deploy for more information.

Do Not Block List

See Override Security Intelligence Blocking.

To select all objects in the list, right-click an object.

Block List

See Configuration Example: Security Intelligence Blocking and other topics in this chapter.

For explanations of the visual indicators in the Block list, see Block List Icons.

To select all objects in the list, right-click an object.

Logging

Security Intelligence logging, enabled by default, logs all blocked and monitored connections handled by an access control policy’s target devices. However, the system does not log Do Not Block list matches; logging of connections on the Do Not Block list depends on their eventual disposition. Logging must be enabled for connections on the Block list before you can set objects on that list to monitor-only.

To enable, disable, or view logging settings, right-click an object in the Block list.

Security Intelligence Categories

Security Intelligence categories are determined by the system-provided feeds described in Security Intelligence Lists and Feeds.

These categories are used in the following locations:

The Networks sub-tab on the Security Intelligence tab of an access control policy
The URLs sub-tab beside the Networks tab on the Security Intelligence tab of an access control policy
In a DNS policy on the DNS tab in the DNS rule configuration page
In events generated when traffic matches Block or Monitor configurations in the above locations

Categories are updated by Talos from the cloud, and this list may change independently of Firepower releases.

Table 1. Cisco Talos Intelligence Group (Talos) Feed Categories

Security Intelligence Category

Description

Attackers

Active scanners and hosts known for outbound malicious activity

Banking_fraud

Sites that engage in fraudulent activities that relate to electronic banking

Bogon

Bogon networks and unallocated IP addresses

Bots

Sites that host binary malware droppers

CnC

Sites that host command-and-control servers for botnets

Cryptomining

Hosts providing remote access to pools and wallets for the purpose of mining cryptocurrency

Dga

Malware algorithms used to generate a large number of domain names acting as rendezvous points with their command-and-control servers

Exploitkit

Software kits designed to identify software vulnerabilities in clients

High_risk

Domains and hostnames that match against the OpenDNS predictive security algorithms from security graph

Ioc

Hosts that have been observed to engage in Indicators of Compromise (IOC)

Link_sharing

Websites that share copyrighted files without permission

Malicious

Sites exhibiting malicious behavior that do not necessarily fit into another, more granular, threat category

Malware

Sites that host malware binaries or exploit kits

Newly_seen

Domains that have recently been registered, or not yet seen via telemetry.

Attention

Currently, this category does not have any active feed and is reserved for future use.

Open_proxy

Open proxies that allow anonymous web browsing

Open_relay

Open mail relays that are known to be used for spam

Phishing

Sites that host phishing pages

Response

IP addresses and URLs that are actively participating in malicious or suspicious activity

Spam

Mail hosts that are known for sending spam

Spyware

Sites that are known to contain, serve, or support spyware and adware activities

Suspicious

Files that appear to be suspicious and have characteristics that resemble known malware

Tor_exit_node

Hosts known to offer exit node services for the Tor Anonymizer network

Block List Icons

The following visual indicators may appear in the Block list on the Security Intelligence tab in an access control policy:


Icon or Visual Indicator	Description
Block ()	The object is set to block.
Monitor ()	The object is set to monitor-only. See Security Intelligence Monitoring
An object is displayed in strikethrough text	The same object is also on the Do Not Block list, which overrides the block.

Configuration Example: Security Intelligence Blocking

Configure your access control policy to block all threats detectable by the system's regularly updated Security Intelligence feeds.

The number of objects in the Block lists plus the number in the Do Not Block lists cannot exceed 125 network objects, or 32767 URL objects and lists.

Note

The system builds a separate network map for each leaf domain. In a multidomain deployment, using literal IP addresses to constrain this configuration can have unexpected results. Using override-enabled objects allows descendant domain administrators to tailor Global configurations to their local environments.

Caution

From Security Intelligence in an access control policy, adding multiple objects to a Do Not Block list or Block list, or deleting multiple objects, sometimes restarts the Snort process when you deploy configuration changes, temporarily interrupting traffic inspection. Whether traffic drops during this interruption or passes without further inspection depends on how the target device handles traffic. See Snort® Restart Traffic Behavior for more information. Note that whether the Snort process restarts can vary by device, depending on the memory available for inspection.