The Center for Internet Security (CIS) Top 20 Critical Security Controls are used by companies large and small across all industries to strengthen cybersecurity. While many other frameworks go beyond these security domains, the CIS Top 20 remains an invaluable control to ensure organizations are covering essential security functions that reduce cyber risk.
Previously, we covered how Axonius helps achieve and maintain CIS Control 1, 2, and 3. In this blog, we’ll focus on CIS Control 15.
CIS Control 15: Wireless Access Control
CIS Control 15 is a foundational control that states organizations should control the use of wireless local arena networks (WLANs), access points, and wireless client systems to prevent data theft and malicious activity.
This control also recommends that organizations leverage the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to encrypt wireless data in transit, and create a separate wireless network for untrusted devices.
Tracking All Wireless Devices Is Easier Said Than Done
Setting up separate guest networks and using AES encryption is very routine these days. What’s more difficult is tracking all devices that access these networks to identify unknown, unmanaged, and rogue devices that access wireless networks.
Network, IT, and security teams can often sift through network logs and look at ARP cache, Mac address tables, DHCP, and CDP/LLDP tables. But it’s time-consuming to piece all these pieces of information together, and quickly ascertain what the device is and whether it should have access to the network.
How Axonius Makes Maintaining CIS Control 15 Easier
Axonius integrates with leading networking and wireless technology providers to report on assets accessing wireless networks. Furthermore, it’s easy to identify unmanaged devices that are accessing specific network interfaces
Using the Axonius Query Wizard, you can easily search for unknown, unmanaged, and rogue devices on specific network interfaces across your connected network infrastructure. These queries can be saved and run on a continuous basis. So any time a new device has connected to network segments of interest, you can be notified and take action.
Finding Devices on Non-Guest Networks
Since most organizations typically restrict most applications, services, and data access to corporate networks, identifying any unknown, unmanaged, or rogue device on non-guest networks is critical
Using connected network infrastructure, you can quickly identify all devices on non-guest networks — along with which devices are not managed by any IT or security solution. The query below shows many Android devices that aren’t on the guest network and aren’t covered by any controls.
Taking Action To Continually Secure Wireless Access
Of course, it’s not enough to just find devices that may not be on the correct network, or that may be on the correct network but not properly managed. Using the , you can automatically notify teams, enrich device details, and take customized actions to mitigate the risk of unknown, unmanaged, and rogue devices.
By correlating network data with device and user data, and leveraging the automation of the Axonius Cybersecurity Asset Management platform, maintaining CIS Control 15 requires less manual work and time to validate wireless access control.
Want to learn how Axonius maps to all of the CIS Top 20 Critical Security Controls? See how Axonius supports each control here.
