Reasons to upgrade cisco ASA

[ammaralobaidi]

  HI

I have two Cisco ASA 5540, these ASA running ver 7.2. and used mainly as VPN gateways.

My question is simple, Apart from the extra AnyConnect client functionality and the higher encryption, is there any specific security benefits (related to the VPN use) for upgrading to ver. 8.x ?

Thanks

A.

[Leo Laohoo]

Bug fixes to identified security vulnerabilities.

[ammaralobaidi]

Hi leolaohoo,

thanks for the reply, is there any spesific documents shows these vulnerabilities and there fix in the upgraded versions?

[Marvin Rhoads]

Ammar,

Each version has Release Notes. For the ASA they are all posted here.

In each Release Note there is a "Resolved Caveats" sections. That is where the fixes for all problems - vulnerabilities as well as functions/features - are listed.

Besides higher encryption and Anyconnect client, you can also use IKE v2 (as of 8.4(1) ) which is more secure during session setup (apart from the level of encryption). You can also use identity-based features and a host of other features to further secure your remote access VPNs. On the other hand, if what you have now is meeting your needs, the only compelling reasons to upgrade are vulnerability and bug fixes (and perhaps a prettier version of ASDM that will run with the newest Java versions ).

[Leo Laohoo]

thanks for the reply, is there any spesific documents shows these vulnerabilities and there fix in the upgraded versions?

Cisco Security Advisories and Responses