Cisco 500 series Administration Manual page 371

Secure Sensitive Data
SSD Properties
Cisco 500 Series Stackable Managed Switch Administration Guide
Passphrase
A passphrase is the basis of the security mechanism in the SSD feature, and is
used to generate the key for the encryption and decryption of sensitive data.
Sx200, Sx300, Sx500, and SG500x series switches that have the same passphrase are able to
decrypt each other's sensitive data encrypted with the key generated from the passphrase.
A passphrase must comply with the following rules:
• Length—Between 8-16 characters.
• Character Classes—The passphrase must have at least one upper case
character, one lower case character, one numeric character, and one special
character e.g. #,$.
Default and User-defined Passphrases
All devices come with a default, out-of-the box passphrase that is transparent to
users. The default passphrase is never displayed in the configuration file or in the
CLI/GUI.
If better security and protection are desired, an administrator should configure
SSD on a device to use a user-defined passphrase instead of the default
passphrase. A user-defined passphrase should be treated as a well-guard secret,
so that the security of the sensitive data on the device is not compromised.
A user-defined passphrase can be configured manually in plain text. It can also be
derived from a configuration file. (See SSD Zero-Touch Auto Configuration). A
device always displays user-defined passphrases encrypted.
Local Passphrase
A device maintains a local passphrase which is the passphrase of its Running
Configuration. SSD normally performs encryption and decryption of sensitive data
with the key generated from the local passphrase.
The local passphrase can be configured to be either the default passphrase or a
user-defined passphrase. By default, the local passphrase and default
passphrase are identical. It can be changed by administrative actions from either
the Command Line Interface (if available) or the web-based interface. It is
automatically changed to the passphrase in the startup configuration file, when the
startup configuration becomes the running configuration of the device. When a
device is reset to factory default, the local passphrase is reset to the default
passphrase.
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