Data Sheet

Cisco Security Monitoring, Analysis, and Response

System 4.2.x/5.2.x

The Cisco

®

Security Monitoring, Analysis, and Response System (Cisco Security MARS) is an appliance-based, all-inclusive solution that provides unmatched insight and control of your existing security deployment. Part of Cisco’s security management lifecycle, Cisco

Security MARS empowers your security and network organizations to identify, manage, and counter security threats. It works with your existing network and security investments to identify, isolate, and recommend precise removal of offending elements. It also helps maintain internal policy compliance and can be an integral part of your overall regulatory compliance solution.

Security and network administrators face numerous challenges, including:

Security and network information overload

Poor attack and fault identification, prioritization, and response

Increases in attack sophistication, velocity, and remediation costs

Compliance and audit requirement adherence

Security staff and budget constraints

Cisco Security MARS addresses these challenges by:

Integrating network intelligence to modernize correlation of network anomalies and security events

Visualizing validated incidents and automating investigation

Mitigating attacks by taking full advantage of your existing network and security infrastructure

Monitoring systems, network, and security operations to aid in compliance

Delivering a scalable appliance that is easy to deploy and use with the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO)

Cisco Security MARS transforms raw network and security data into intelligence that can be used to subvert valid security incidents and maintain compliance. This easy-to-use family of threat mitigation appliances enables operators to centralize, detect, mitigate, and report on priority threats using the network and security devices already deployed in your infrastructure.

The Defense In-Depth Dilemna

Information security practices have evolved from Internet perimeter protection to an in-depth defense model in which multiple countermeasures are layered throughout the infrastructure to address vulnerabilities and attacks. This is necessary due to increased attack frequency, diverse attack sophistication, and the rapid nature of attack velocity—all blurring the boundaries between the network and perimeter.

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Data Sheet

Network access points and systems are probed thousands of times each day in an attempt to exploit vulnerabilities. Modern blended/hybrid attacks use multiple and deceptive attack methodologies to gain unauthorized system access and control from outside and within organizations. The proliferation of worms, day-zero attacks, viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, and attack tools challenges even the most fortified infrastructures, resulting in smaller reaction time, downtime, and costly remediation.

Beyond the number of servers and network devices, each security component offers isolated event log and alert features for anomaly detection, threat reaction, and forensics. Unfortunately, this yields a tremendous amount of noise, alarms, log files, and false positives for operators to discern or effectively use—assuming the time and resources are available to parse through and understand this information. In addition, compliance legislature requires strict data privacy, improved operational security, and maintained audit processes.

Advancing Security Information Management and Threat Mitigation

Security information and event management products logically seem to alleviate these problems— helping you measure threats so you can manage them. These products enable operators to centrally aggregate security events and logs, analyze this data through limited correlation and query techniques, and generate alarms and reports on isolated events.

Unfortunately, many first- and second-generation security information and event management products do not yield sufficient network intelligence and performance attributes to more precisely identify and validate correlated events, better pinpoint attack paths, surgically remove threats, or maintain high event loads. Cisco Systems

®

addresses these security issues and management deficiencies with a family of scalable enterprise threat mitigation appliances. The Cisco Security

MARS complements your network and security infrastructure investment by delivering a security threat control and containment solution that is easy to deploy, easy to use, and cost-effective. The

Cisco Security MARS family of high-performance, scalable threat mitigation appliances fortifies deployed network devices and security countermeasures by combining network intelligence,

ContextCorrelation™ features, SureVector™ analysis, and AutoMitigate™ capability, empowering companies to readily identify, manage, and eliminate network attacks and maintain compliance.

Cisco Security MARS integrates tightly with Cisco’s premier security management suite, Cisco

Security Manager. This integration maps traffic-related syslog messages to the firewall and IPS policies defined in Cisco Security Manager that triggered the event. Policy lookup enables rapid, round-trip analysis for troubleshooting IPS and firewall-configuration-related network issues, policy configuration errors, and fine-tuning defined policies.

Features and Benefits

Network Intelligent Event Aggregation and Performance Processing

Cisco Security MARS obtains network intelligence by understanding the topology and device configurations from routers, switches, and firewalls, and by profiling network traffic. The system’s integrated network discovery function builds a topology map containing device configuration and current security policies, which enables it to model packet flows through your network. Since the appliance does not operate inline and makes minimal use of existing software agents, there is little impact on network or system performance.

The appliance centrally aggregates logs and events from a wide range of popular network devices

(such as routers and switches), security devices and applications (such as firewalls, intrusion

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Data Sheet detection systems [IDSs], vulnerability scanners, and antivirus applications), hosts (such as

Windows, Solaris, and Linux syslogs), applications (such as databases, Web servers, and authentication servers), and network traffic (such as Cisco NetFlow).

Cisco ContextCorrelation

As events and data are received, the information is normalized against the topology, discovered device configurations, same source and destination applications across Network Address

Translation [NAT] boundaries. Corresponding events are grouped into sessions in real time.

System- and user-defined correlation rules are then applied to multiple sessions to identify incidents. Cisco Security MARS ships with a full complement of predefined rules, frequently updated by Cisco, that identify a majority of blended attack scenarios, day-zero attacks, and worms. A graphical rule definition framework simplifies the creation of user-defined custom rules for any application. ContextCorrelation significantly reduces raw event data, facilitates response prioritization, and maximizes results from deployed countermeasures.

High-Performance Aggregation and Consolidation

Cisco Security MARS captures millions of raw events, efficiently classifies incidents with unprecedented data reduction, and compresses this information for archive. Managing this high volume of security events requires a secure and stable centralized logging platform. Cisco Security

MARS appliances are security-hardened and optimized for receiving extremely high levels of event traffic—more than 15,000 events per second or more than 300,000 Cisco NetFlow events per second. This high-performance correlation is made possible through inline processing logic and the use of embedded high-performance database system. All database functions and tuning are transparent to the user. Onboard storage and continual compression of historical data archives to network file system (NFS) secondary storage devices makes Cisco Security MARS a reliable security log aggregation solution.

Incident Visualization and Mitigation

Cisco Security MARS helps to accelerate and simplify the process of threat identification, investigation, validation, and mitigation. Security staff are often confronted with escalated events that require time-consuming analysis for resolution and remediation. Cisco Security MARS provides a powerful, interactive security management dashboard. The operator GUI provides a topology map that comprises real-time hotspots, incidents, attack paths, and detailed investigation with full incident disclosure, allowing immediate verification of valid threats.

Cisco SureVector analysis processes similar event sessions to determine if threats are valid or have been countered by assessing the entire attack path, down to the endpoint mandatory access conrol (MAC) address. This automated process is accomplished by analyzing device logs such as firewalls and intrusion prevention applications, third-party vulnerability assessment data, and through Cisco Security MARS endpoint scans to eliminate false positives. Users can quickly finetune the system to further reduce false positives.

The goal of any security program is to keep systems online and functioning properly—this is critical for preventing security exposures, containing incidents, and facilitating remediation. With the Cisco

Security Monitoring, Analysis, and Response System, operators have a rapid means to understand all of the components involved within an attack, down to the offending and compromised system

MAC address. Cisco AutoMitigate capabilities identify available “choke-point” devices along the attack path and automatically provide the appropriate device commands that the user can employ

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Data Sheet to mitigate the threat. The results can be used to quickly and accurately prevent or contain an attack.

Real-Time Investigation and Compliance Reporting

Cisco Security MARS features an easy-to-use analysis framework that streamlines the conventional security workflow, providing automated case assignment, investigation, escalation, notification, and annotation for daily operations and specialized audits. It can graphically replay attacks and retrieve stored event data to analyze previous events. The system fully supports adhoc queries for real-time and subsequent data-mining efforts.

Cisco Security MARS offers numerous predefined reports to satisfy operational requirements and assist in regulatory compliance efforts, including compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, the Gramm-

Leach Bliley Act (GLBA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the

Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) in the United States, and the EU’s Revised

Basel Capital Framework (Basel II). An intuitive report generator can modify the more than 100 standard reports or generate new reports for an unlimited means to build action and remediation plans, incident and network activity, security posture and audit, as well as departmental reports—in data, trend, and chart formats. The system also provides for batch and e-mail reporting.

Network Admission Control Support

Cisco Security MARS will parse, normalize, correlate, and report on 802.1x authentication events from both Layer 2 switches and Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS). Cisco Security MARS will do the same using the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) protocol for Layer 3 routers and for Cisco VPN 3000 Series concentrators. This allows customers to troubleshoot device authentication methods by determining the chain of connections between the switch, the Cisco

Secure ACS, the endpoint being validated, and the external authentication source, such as Active

Directory or network information service (NIS). Cisco Security MARS also provides centralized reporting for Network Admission Control (NAC) Phase 1 and Phase 2 parameters that highlight the reason for device and posture authentication failure. Examples of such reports include:

User report

User detail

Endpoint detail

Rejected endpoints report

Endpoint status queries failures qeport

Application posture token distribution report

Top ten endpoints and top ten user violations report

Remediation time by endpoint report

Rapid Deployment and Scalable Management

Cisco Security MARS is placed on a TCP/IP network where it can send and receive syslog messages and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) traps, and can establish secure sessions with deployed network and security devices through standard secure or vendor-specific protocols. No additional hardware, operating system patches, licensing, or lengthy professional service engagements are required to install and deploy the Cisco Security Monitoring, Analysis, and Response System. Simply configure your log sources to point to the appliance and define any network and source through the Web-based GUI. Rapidly deploy Cisco Security MARS by

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Data Sheet forwarding messages from existing syslog-ng or Kiwi syslog servers. This feature eliminates many network and device changes required to insert Cisco Security MARS into an operational network.

Cisco Security MARS appliance is centrally managed through a secure Web-based interface that supports role-based administration and authentication. The optional Global Controller appliance centralizes expansive security operations to provide a single view of the entire enterprise and to disseminate access privileges, configurations, updates, customized rules, and report templates, as well as to coordinate complex investigations with accelerated queries and reports that are processed locally.

As the local Cisco Security MARS appliances execute queries and rules across the enterprise, the results are efficiently consolidated for rapid and centralized analysis at the system’s Global

Controller. This scalable architecture yields an additional level of distributed processing and storage. The result is more cost-effective deployment and greater manageability, which addresses the requirements of large and geographically dispersed organizations.

Cisco Security Monitoring, Analysis, and Response System Technical Specifications

Versioning information

The 4.2.x release will continue to support the MARS-20R, MARS-20, MARS-50, MARS-100e,

MARS-100, MARS-200, MARS-GCm, MARS-GC appliances. The 5.2.x release will support features on new appliance models MARS-110R, MARS-110, MARS-210, MARS-GC2. There will be significant feature parity across the two releases. Although appliance differences may make complete feature parity impossible, it is the goal of the product team to provide near perfect feature parity across all MARS appliances. Please refer to the release Q&A for further details.

Cisco Security MARS family offers different performance characteristics and prices to meet a variety of organizational needs and deployment scenarios (Table 1).

Table 1. Cisco Security MARS Products

Events/Sec

1

Cisco Part Number (Local

Controller Models)

Cisco Security MARS 20R

(CS-MARS-20R-K9)

50

NetFlows/Se c

1500

Storage

120 GB (non-

RAID)

Rack Unit

1 RU x 16 in.

Power

Cisco Security MARS 20

(CS-MARS-20-K9)

Cisco Security MARS 50

(CS-MARS-50-K9)

Cisco Security MARS 100e

(CS-MARS-100E-K9)

Cisco Security MARS 100

(CS-MARS-100-K9)

Cisco Security MARS 200

(CS-MARS-200-K9)

500

1,000

3000

5000

10,000

15,000

30,000

75,000

150,000

300,000

120 GB (non-

RAID)

240 GB RAID

0

750 GB RAID

10 hotswappable

750 GB RAID

10 hotswappable

1 TB RAID

10 hotswappable

1 RU x 16 in.

1 RU x 25.6 in.

3 RU x 25.6 in.

3 RU x 25.6 in.

4 RU x 25.6 in.

300W,

120/240V autoswitch

300W,

120/240V autoswitch

300W,

120/240V autoswitch

500W dualredundant,

120/240V autoswitch

500W dualredundant,

120/240V autoswitch

500W dualredundant,

120/240V autoswitch

1

Events per second: Maximum events per second with dynamic correlation and all features enabled.

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Data Sheet

Cisco Part Number (Local

Controller Models)

Cisco Security MARS 110R

(CS-MARS-110R-K9)

Events/Sec

1

4,500

Cisco Security MARS 110

(CS-MARS-110-K9)

Cisco Security MARS 210

(CS-MARS-210-K9)

7,500

15,000

NetFlows/Se c

75,000

150,000

300,000

Storage

1,500 GB

RAID 10 hotswappable

1,500 GB

RAID 10 hotswappable

2,000 TB

RAID 10 hotswappable

Rack Unit Power

2 RU x 27

3/4" (D);

3.44" (H); 19"

(W) in.

2 RU x 27

3/4" (D);

3.44" (H); 19"

(W) in.

2 RU x 27

3/4" (D);

3.44" (H); 19"

(W) in.

2x 750 W dualredundant,

120/240V autoswitch

2x 750 W dualredundant,

120/240V autoswitch

2x 750 W dualredundant,

120/240V autoswitch

Cisco Part Number (Global Controller Models)

Models

Supported

Cisco Security MARS GCm

(CS-MARS-GCm-K9)

Cisco

Security

MARS

20/50 only

Maximum

Connections

5

Cisco Security MARS GC

(CS-MARS-GC-K9)

Any Not currently restricted

Cisco Security MARS GC2

(CS-MARS-GC2-K9)

Any Not currently restricted

Distributed Monitoring

Storage Rack Unit Power

1 TB RAID 10 hotswappable

1 TB RAID 10 hotswappable

4 RU x 25.6"

(D); 19" (W) in.

4 RU x 25.6 in.

2 TB RAID 10 hotswappable

2 RU x 27

3/4" (D);

3.44" (H); 19"

(W) in.

2x 500 W dualredundant,

120/240V autoswitch

500W dualredundant,

120/240V autoswitch

2x 750 W dualredundant,

120/240V autoswitch

Dynamic Session-Based Correlation

Network Based Anomaly detection, including Cisco NetFlow

Behavior-based and rules-based event correlation

Comprehensive built-in and user-defined rules

Automated NAT normalization

Topology Discovery

Layer 3 and Layer 2 routers, switches, and firewalls

Network IDS blades and appliances

Manual and scheduled discovery

Secure Shell (SSH), SNMP, Telnet, and device-specific communications

Vulnerability Analysis

Incident-triggered targeted network-based and host-based fingerprinting

Switch, router, firewall, and NAT configuration analysis

Automated vulnerability scanner data capture

Automated and user-tuned false positive analysis

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Data Sheet

Incident Analysis and Response

Role-based security event management dashboard

Session-based event consolidation with full-rule context

Graphical attack path visualization with detailed investigation

Attack path device profiles with endpoint MAC identification

Graphical and detailed sequential attack pattern display

Incident details, including rules, raw events, common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs), and mitigation options

Immediate incident investigation and false positive determination

GUI rule definition in support of custom rules and keyword parsing

Incident escalation with user-based “to-do” work list

Notification, including e-mail, pager, syslog, and SNMP

Integration with existing ticketing and workflow system via Extensible Markup Language

(XML) event notification

Query and Reporting

Low-latency, real-time event query

GUI that supports numerous default queries and customized queries

More than 150 popular reports, including management, operational, and regulatory

Intuitive report generation yielding unlimited customized reports

Data, chart, and trend formats that support HTML and comma seperated vector (CSV) export

Live, batch, template, and e-mail forwarding reporting system

Easy to use query structure built for an effective drill down to the information in a specific incident

Administration

Web interface (HTTPS); roles-based administration with defined privileges

Global Controller hierarchical management of multiple Cisco Security Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Systems

Automated, verified updates, including device support, new rules, and features

Continuous compressed raw data and incident archive to offline NFS storage

Device Support

Network: Cisco IOS Software; Cisco Catalyst

®

OS; Cisco NetFlow; and Extreme

Extremeware

Firewall/VPN: Cisco ASA Software; Cisco PIX

®

Security Appliance; Cisco IOS Firewall;

Cisco Firewall Services Module (FWSM); Cisco VPN 3000 Concentrator; Checkpoint

Firewall-1 NG and VPN-1 versions; NetScreen Firewall; and Nokia Firewall Intrusion detection: Cisco IDS; Cisco IDS Module; Cisco IOS IPS; Enterasys Dragon NIDS; ISS

RealSecure Network Sensor; Snort NIDS; McAfee Intrushield NIDS; NetScreen IDP; OS; and Symantec ManHunt

Vulnerability assessment: eEye REM, Qualys QualysGuard, and FoundStone FoundScan

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Data Sheet

Host security: Cisco Security Agent; McAfee Entercept; and ISS RealSecure Host Sensor

Antivirus: Symantec Antivirus, Cisco Incident Control System (Cisco ICS), Trend Micro

Outbreak Prevention Service (OPS), Network Associates VirusScan, and McAfee ePO

Authentication servers: Cisco Secure ACS

Host log: Windows NT, 2000, and 2003 (agent and agentless); Solaris; and Linux

Application: Web servers (Internet Information Server, iPlanet, and Apache); Oracle audit logs; and Network Appliance NetCache

Universal device support to aggregate and monitor any application syslog

Support additional and custom devices using the custom log parser feature

Cisco Security MARS continues to improve device support. For the comprehensive, up-to-date list with supported version information, see http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6241/products_device_support_tables_list.html

.

Additional Hardware Specifications

Purpose-built 19-in. rack-mountable appliances; UL, VCCI, CE, and FCC part 15 approved

Security-hardened OS with firewall with restricted services

Two 10/100/1000-MB Ethernet interfaces

DVD-ROM drive with recovery media

Ordering Information

To place an order, visit the Cisco Ordering Home Page . Table 2 lists ordering information for Cisco

Security MARS.

Table 2. Cisco Security MARS Ordering Information

Product Name

2

Cisco Security MARS 20R for up to 50 events/second and 1500 NetFlows/second

Cisco Security MARS 20 for up to 500 events/second and 15,000 NetFlows/second

Cisco Security MARS 50 for up to 1,000 events/second and 30,000 NetFlows/second

Cisco Security MARS 100e for up to 3000 events/second and 75,000 NetFlows/second

Cisco Security MARS 100 for up to 5000 events/second and 150,000 NetFlows/second

Cisco Security MARS 200 for up to 10,000 events/second and 300,000 NetFlows/second

Cisco Security MARS 110R for up to 4,500 events/second and 75,000 NetFlows/second

Cisco Security MARS 110 for up to 7,500 events/second and 150,000 NetFlows/second

Cisco Security MARS 210 for up to 15,000 events/second and 300,000 NetFlows/second

Cisco Security MARS GCm for distributed monitoring of up to 5 Local Controller models 20 or 50

Cisco Security MARS GC for distributed monitoring of any number of all Local Controller models

Cisco Security MARS GC2 for distributed monitoring of any number of all Local Controller models

Part Number

CS-MARS-20R-K9

CS-MARS-20-K9

CS-MARS-50-K9

CS-MARS-100E-K9

CS-MARS-100-K9

CS-MARS-200-K9

CS-MARS-110R-K9

CS-MARS-110-K9

CS-MARS-210-K9

CS-MARS-GCm-K9

CS-MARS-GC-K9

CS-MARS-GC2-K9

2

For additional product specifications, see Table 1.

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Data Sheet

Service and Support

Cisco offers a wide range of services programs to accelerate customer success. These innovative services programs are delivered through a unique combination of people, processes, tools, and partners, resulting in high levels of customer satisfaction. Cisco services help you to protect your network investment, optimize network operations, and prepare the network for new applications to extend network intelligence and the power of your business. For more information about Cisco

Services, see Cisco Technical Support Services or Cisco Advanced Services .

Printed in USA

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