Classifying Rogue Access Points

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Information About Classifying Rogue Access Points

The controller software enables you to create rules that can organize and display rogue access points as Friendly, Malicious, or Unclassified.

By default, none of the classification rules are enabled. Therefore, all unknown access points are categorized as Unclassified. When you create a rule, configure conditions for it, and enable the rule, the unclassified access points are reclassified. Whenever you change a rule, it is applied to all access points (friendly, malicious, and unclassified) in the Alert state only.

If you move any rogue or ad hoc rogue manually to unclassified and Alert state, it means that the rogue is moved to the default state. Rogue rules apply to all the rogues that are manually moved to unclassified and Alert state.


Note

Rule-based rogue classification does not apply to ad hoc rogues and rogue clients.


Note

You can configure up to 64 rogue classification rules per controller.

When the controller receives a rogue report from one of its managed access points, it responds as follows:

  1. The controller verifies that the unknown access point is in the friendly MAC address list. If it is, the controller classifies the access point as Friendly.

  2. If the unknown access point is not in the friendly MAC address list, the controller starts applying rogue classification rules.

  3. If the rogue is already classified as Malicious, Alert or Friendly, Internal or External, the controller does not reclassify it automatically. If the rogue is classified differently, the controller reclassifies it automatically only if the rogue is in the Alert state.

  4. The controller applies the first rule based on priority. If the rogue access point matches the criteria specified by the rule, the controller classifies the rogue according to the classification type configured for the rule.

  5. If the rogue access point does not match any of the configured rules, the controller classifies the rogue as Unclassified.

  6. The controller repeats the previous steps for all rogue access points.

  7. If RLDP determines that the rogue access point is on the network, the controller marks the rogue state as Threat and classifies it as Malicious automatically, even if no rules are configured. You can then manually contain the rogue (unless you have configured RLDP to automatically contain the rogue), which would change the rogue state to Contained. If the rogue access point is not on the network, the controller marks the rogue state as Alert, and you can manually contain the rogue.

  8. If desired, you can manually move the access point to a different classification type and rogue state.

Table 1. Classification Mapping

Rule-Based Classification Type

Rogue States

Friendly

  • Internal—If the unknown access point is inside the network and poses no threat to WLAN security, you would manually configure it as Friendly, Internal. An example is the access points in your lab network.

  • External—If the unknown access point is outside the network and poses no threat to WLAN security, you would manually configure it as Friendly, External. An example is an access point that belongs to a neighboring coffee shop.

  • Alert—The unknown access point is moved to Alert if it is not in the neighbor list or in the user-configured friendly MAC list.

Malicious

  • Alert—The unknown access point is moved to Alert if it is not in the neighbor list or in the user-configured friendly MAC list.

  • Threat—The unknown access point is found to be on the network and poses a threat to WLAN security.

  • Contained—The unknown access point is contained.

  • Contained Pending—The unknown access point is marked Contained, but the action is delayed due to unavailable resources.

Unclassified

  • Pending—On first detection, the unknown access point is put in the Pending state for 3 minutes. During this time, the managed access points determine if the unknown access point is a neighbor access point.

  • Alert—The unknown access point is moved to Alert if it is not in the neighbor list or in the user-configured friendly MAC list.

  • Contained—The unknown access point is contained.

  • Contained Pending—The unknown access point is marked Contained, but the action is delayed due to unavailable resources.

The classification and state of the rogue access points are configured as follows:

  • From Known to Friendly, Internal

  • From Acknowledged to Friendly, External

  • From Contained to Malicious, Contained

As mentioned previously, the controller can automatically change the classification type and rogue state of an unknown access point based on user-defined rules, or you can manually move the unknown access point to a different classification type and rogue state.

Table 2. Allowable Classification Type and Rogue State Transitions

From

To

Friendly (Internal, External, Alert) Malicious (Alert)
Friendly (Internal, External, Alert) Unclassified (Alert)
Friendly (Alert) Friendly (Internal, External)
Malicious (Alert, Threat) Friendly (Internal, External)
Malicious (Contained, Contained Pending) Malicious (Alert)
Unclassified (Alert, Threat) Friendly (Internal, External)
Unclassified (Contained, Contained Pending) Unclassified (Alert)
Unclassified (Alert) Malicious (Alert)

If the rogue state is Contained, you have to uncontain the rogue access point before you can change the classification type. If you want to move a rogue access point from Malicious to Unclassified, you must delete the access point and allow the controller to reclassify it.

Restrictions on Classifying Rogue Access Points

The following rules apply to this feature:

  • Classifying Custom type rogues is tied to rogue rules. Therefore, it is not possible to manually classify a rogue as Custom. Custom class change can occur only using rogue rules.

  • There are traps that are sent for containment by rule and for every 30 minutes for rogue classification change. For custom classification, the first trap does not contain the severity score because the trap has existed before the custom classification. The severity score is obtained from the subsequent trap that is generated after 30 minutes if the rogue is classified.

  • Rogue rules are applied on every incoming new rogue report in the controller in the order of their priority.

  • Once a rogue satisfies a higher priority rule and classified, it does not move down the priority list for the same report.

  • Previously classified rogue gets re-classified on every new rogue report with the following restrictions:

    • Rogues which are classified as friendly by rule and whose state is set to ALERT, go through re-classification on receiving the new rogue report.

    • If a rogue is classified as friendly by the administrator manually, then the state is INTERNAL and it does not get re-classified on successive rogue reports.

    • If rogue is classified as malicious, irrespective of the state it does not get re-classified on subsequent rogue reports.

  • Transition of the rogue's state from friendly to malicious is possible by multiple rogue rules if some attribute is missing in new rogue report.

  • Transition of the rogue's state from malicious to any other classification is not possible by any rogue rule.

  • If a rogue AP is classified as friendly, it means that the rogue AP exists in the vicinity, is a known AP, and need not be tracked. Therefore, all the rogue clients are either deleted or not tracked if they are associated with the friendly rogue AP.

  • When service set identifiers (SSIDs) are defined as part of a rogue rule, and details of the rogue rule are displayed using the show wireless wps rogue rule detailed command, the output differs in Cisco IOS XE Release 3.7E and prior releases and Cisco IOS XE Denali 16.1.1 and later releases.

    The following is sample output from the show wireless wps rogue rule detailed command in Cisco IOS XE Release 3.6E and prior releases: 
    Switch# show wireless wps rogue rule detailed test

Priority                                    : 1
Rule Name                                   : wpstest
State                                       : Disabled
Type                                        : Pending
Match Operation                             : Any
Hit Count                                   : 0
Total Conditions                            : 1
Condition :
  type                                      : Ssid
  SSID Count                                : 2 
  SSID 1                                    : ssid1
  SSID 2                                    : ssid2
    The following is sample output from the show wireless wps rogue rule detailed command in Cisco IOS XE Denali 16.1.1 and later releases: 
    Switch# show wireless wps rogue rule detailed test

Priority                                    : 1
Rule Name                                   : wpstest
State                                       : Disabled
Type                                        : Pending
Match Operation                             : Any
Hit Count                                   : 0
Total Conditions                            : 1
Condition :
  type                                      : Ssid
  SSID Count                                : 2 
  SSID                                      : ssid1
  SSID                                      : ssid2

How to Classify Rogue Access Points

Configuring Rogue Classification Rules (CLI)

Procedure

  Command or Action Purpose
Step 1

configure terminal

Example:

Device# configure terminal

Enters global configuration mode.
Step 2

wireless wps rogue rule rule-name priority priority

Example:

Device(config)# wireless wps rogue rule rule_3 priority 3
Device(config-rule)#

Creates or enables a rule. While creating a rule, you must enter priority for the rule.

Note 
After creating the rule, if you are editing the rule, you can change the priority only for the rogue rules that are disabled. You cannot change priority for the rogue rules that are enabled. While editing, changing the priority for a rogue rule is optional.
Step 3

classify {friendly | malicious}

Example:

Device(config)# wireless wps rogue rule rule_3 priority 3
Device(config-rule)# classify friendly

Classifies a rule.

Step 4

condition {client-count | duration | encryption | infrastructure | rssi | ssid}

Example:

Device(config)# wireless wps rogue rule rule_3 priority 3
Device(config-rule)# condition client-count 5
Specifies to add the following conditions to a rule that the rogue access point must meet.

  • client-count —Requires that a minimum number of clients be associated to the rogue access point. For example, if the number of clients associated to the rogue access point is greater than or equal to the configured value, then the access point could be classified as malicious. If you choose this option, enter the minimum number of clients to be associated to the rogue access point for the condition_value parameter . The valid range is 1 to 10 (inclusive), and the default value is 0.

  • duration —Requires that the rogue access point be detected for a minimum period of time. If you choose this option, enter a value for the minimum detection period for the condition_value parameter . The valid range is 0 to 3600 seconds (inclusive), and the default value is 0 seconds.

  • encryption —Requires that the advertised WLAN does not have encryption enabled.

  • infrastructure —Requires the SSID to be known to the controller.

  • rssi —Requires that the rogue access point have a minimum RSSI value. For example, if the rogue access point has an RSSI that is greater than the configured value, then the access point could be classified as malicious. If you choose this option, enter the minimum RSSI value for the condition_value parameter . The valid range is –95 to –50 dBm (inclusive), and the default value is 0 dBm.

  • ssid —Requires that the rogue access point have a specific SSID. You should add SSIDs that are not managed by the controller. If you choose this option, enter the SSID for the condition_value parameter . The SSID is added to the user-configured SSID list.

Step 5

match {all | any}

Example:

Device(config)# wireless wps rogue rule rule_3 priority 3
Device(config-rule)# match all

Specifies whether a detected rogue access point must meet all or any of the conditions specified by the rule in order for the rule to be matched and the rogue access point to adopt the classification type of the rule.

Step 6

default

Example:

Device(config)# wireless wps rogue rule rule_3 priority 3
Device(config-rule)# default

Specifies to set a command to its default.

Step 7

exit

Example:

Device(config)# wireless wps rogue rule rule_3 priority 3
Device(config-rule)# exit
Device(config)#

Specifies to exit the sub-mode.

Step 8

shutdown

Example:

Device(config)# wireless wps rogue rule rule_3 priority 3
Device(config-rule)# shutdown

Specifies to disable a particular rogue rule. For example, the rule rule_3 is disabled.

Step 9

end

Example:

Device(config)# end

Returns to privileged EXEC mode. Alternatively, you can also press Ctrl-Z to exit global configuration mode.

Step 10

configure terminal

Example:

Device# configure terminal

Enters global configuration mode.
Step 11

wireless wps rogue rule shutdown

Example:

Device(config)# wireless wps rogue rule shutdown

Specifies to disable all the rogue rules.

Step 12

end

Example:

Device(config)# end

Returns to privileged EXEC mode. Alternatively, you can also press Ctrl-Z to exit global configuration mode.

Examples: Classifying Rogue Access Points

This example shows how to create rule that can organize and display rogue access points as Friendly: 

Device# configure terminal
Device(config)# wireless wps rogue rule ap1 priority 1
Device(config-rule)# classify friendly
Device(config-rule)# end
This example shows how to apply condition that the rogue access point must meet: 

Device# configure terminal
Device(config)# wireless wps rogue rule ap1 priority 1
Device(config-rule)# condition client-count 5
Device(config-rule)# condition duration 1000
Device(config-rule)# end

Additional References for Classifying Rogue Access Points

Related Documents

Related Topic Document Title
Security commands

Security Command Reference Guide, Cisco IOS XE Release 3SE (Cisco WLC 5700 Series)

Standards and RFCs

Standard/RFC Title
None

—

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Feature History and Information For Classifying Rogue Access Points

Release Feature Information
Cisco IOS XE 3.3SE This feature was introduced.