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SMP73's avatar
SMP73
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Aug 18, 2023

Most up to date Cipher Suite for version 14.1.x to increase BitSight findings?

Trying to improve some BitSight findings on our externally hosted sites.  Bitsight is kind of vague on its findings and explanations.  I know there used to be a page somewhere that had up to date Cipher Suite strings to enter into your SSL profiles but I am unable to find it.  I am only able to find the docs that explain how to change the string in the profile. Any help will be appreciated.

  • MegaZone's avatar
    MegaZone
    Aug 29, 2023

    These are the default 14.1.x ciphers: https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K54125331
    And these are all the 14.1.x ciphers: https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K97098157

    I'd probably kill all TLSv1.0 and v1.1 ciphers to start:
    DEFAULT:!TLSv1:!TLSv1_1

    In 14.1.x the DHE key is 1024 bit, which can get you dinged, so probably turn those off:
    DEFAULT:!TLSv1:!TLSv1_1:!DHE

    If this doesn't do it, probably remove RSA (key exchange) & SHA1 ciphers:
    DEFAULT:!TLSv1:!TLSv1_1:!DHE:!RSA:!SHA

    That wil basically bring you to a subset of ECDHE ciphers with SHA256/SHA384.

    • SMP73's avatar
      SMP73
      Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus

      Thanks yeah, as mentioned, I can find countless articles on the process to do this, I am just unable to find a "recommended/best practice" cipher suite like I used to be able to.  It looks like there used to be a guy here that would post cipher suites that you could cut and paste that were up to current standards , but looks like this is no longer here.  It looks like I now need to check some security body for best practices and do some translation on what ciphers whis equates to in the F5 naming convention and format for the cipher suites.

       

      • SMP73 I would start by creating a new Client SSL Profile and using the secure parent profile. After that you can run a scan using site https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ or various other sites to see what might not be the setting for you. This should provide a human readable list as to what is not the optimal ciphers that you have available. Once you have that human readable list that should match up one to one in the cipher group where you can exclude the ciphers that are causing the lower security rating.

    • MegaZone's avatar
      MegaZone
      Icon for SIRT rankSIRT

      These are the default 14.1.x ciphers: https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K54125331
      And these are all the 14.1.x ciphers: https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K97098157

      I'd probably kill all TLSv1.0 and v1.1 ciphers to start:
      DEFAULT:!TLSv1:!TLSv1_1

      In 14.1.x the DHE key is 1024 bit, which can get you dinged, so probably turn those off:
      DEFAULT:!TLSv1:!TLSv1_1:!DHE

      If this doesn't do it, probably remove RSA (key exchange) & SHA1 ciphers:
      DEFAULT:!TLSv1:!TLSv1_1:!DHE:!RSA:!SHA

      That wil basically bring you to a subset of ECDHE ciphers with SHA256/SHA384.

      • SMP73's avatar
        SMP73
        Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus

        Thank you!  This is exactly what I was looking for.  Yes it did ding for the DHE key being 1024 bit as well as the TLS versions.  This is a big help.  Kind of swamped day to day and haven't had a chance to really read the details of all of the documentation on this and keep getting emails from cyber/soc.  Thank you!