Question

9) Start a Wireshark capture session on Host1 on port F0/0

10) On Host1, begin a telnet session to 10.251.0.254.

Host1#: telnet 10.251.0.254

11) When prompted for a username & password, type cisco for both

12) After successfully authenticating into Router1, issue the exit command to close the session.

13) Stop the capture session from Host1.

Discuss how telnet traffic being sent in clear text is a security issue and suggest ways to mitigate
that risk.

Answer 1

Major Security Concerns In Telnet Technologies

• The telnet traffic been sent in the clear text is the major concern to the security as it will open up all the credentials and the transferring of packets form where to where is being processed.
• The security issues are enough here. As, in wireshark the packets are clear that the particular user is sending it from which location and to whom he is sending.
• It fails in giving privacy to the user. If privacy is not provided it can be harmful for the user and also to the organization as the user will not prefer to use the technology again. It will affect the business logic of the organization.
• This can lead to vulnerabilities such as
  • Weak Client Authentication
  • No Server Authentication
  • Absence Of Data Integrity , Reliability & Scalability.
• These secutiy issues in telnet can clearly affect the technology as a whole and the users safety and privacy is at stake here. Hence, there must be security measures to solve these vulnerablities and errors.

Mitigating The Securtiy Issues In Telnet

• Using NTLM(Network Lan Manager) authentication so that all the credentials like username and password are encrypted as all the text is processed in the form of plain text in the telnet.
• Using IPsec(Internet Protocol Security).
• By limiting the number of users to simultaneously access Telnet server.

Hence, these are the issues in the telnet and how to mitigate them using modern technologies. Hope it is well understood.

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