Secure communication between ACS 4 and AD

[staalebotnen]

Hi,

I'm trying to find out how the communication between Cisco ACS 4 and AD (Windows server) is secured. I've looked through tons of documentation, but there seems to be little mention of how traffic between the ACS and the external database is secured. The problem we face is that we do not completely trust the network between the ACS and our AD, and it would be a bad thing if the user name and password was sendt in the clear..

Any clearifications would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

stbot

[smalkeric]

You can enable a secure socket layer (SSL) for administrative sessions. This method ensures that all communication between the web browser and ACS is encrypted. Your browser must support SSL. You can enable this feature on the Access Policy Setup page in the Administration Control section.

[staalebotnen]

Hi, and thanks for the reply.

But I think you misunderstood my question. The communication between browsers and ACS is secured today by using SSL(as you described), but how is the traffic protected between the ACS server and any external databases that the ACS needs to communicate with? One example would be when the ACS verifies that a user's credentials are equal in the ACS internal database and AD, does this traffic travel unencrypted over the network? If so, then it would be easy for malicious insiders to sniff the traffic and collect passwords and usernames..

Regards

Staale