Windows Schannel Cookbook

Description

A cookbook to configure the windows Secure Channel (Schannel) security support provider (SSP). This SSP contains a set of security protocols and ciphers suites commonly used for HTTPS communications. Many of the microsoft provided services and 3rd party software make use of Schannel for their communication so by removing support for a given protocol, removes it for all components.

This can be a double-edge sword, restricting a protocol might be fine for one service and end up breaking another.

Always make sure you test these settings before deploying into production as you could end up shooting yourself in the foot

Using this cookbook should help improve your security posture for the following microsoft services and help towards meeting regulatory compliance (PCI CIS FIPS)

• Internet Information Services (IIS)
• Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP) when configured to use TLS
• LDAPS (Active Directory)
• Global Catalog SSL (Active Directory)
• WinRM/HTTPS (Windows Remote Management)

TODO : Insert image of external scan before and after.

Support for managing the following

Protocols

• Transport Layer Security (TLS) - v1.0, v1.1, v1.2
• Secure Socket Layer (SSL) - v2.0, v3.0
• Private Communications Technology (PCT) - v1.0

Cipher Suites

• NULL, DES, RC2, RC4, 3DES, AES

Hashes

• MD5, SHA

Key Exchanges

• Diffie-Hellman (DH)

Requirements

Platforms

• Windows Server 2008 (R1, R2)
• Windows Server 2012 (R1, R2)

Attributes

• node['windows_schannel']['allow_reboot'] = false changes made to protocols won't take affect until after a restart, this doesn't apply to ciphers and hashes. The default is false change this to true to initiate a reboot after the run.

Other than the allow_reboot attribute all the others are controlled by either setting it to either enable or disable this is CaSe Sensitive

Protocols

• node['windows_schannel']['pct_v1.0'] = disable
• node['windows_schannel']['ssl_v2.0'] = disable
• node['windows_schannel']['ssl_v3.0'] = disable
• node['windows_schannel']['tls_v1.0'] = enable
• node['windows_schannel']['tls_v1.1'] = enable
• node['windows_schannel']['tls_v1.2'] = enable

Ciphers

• node['windows_schannel']['cipher_null'] = disable
• node['windows_schannel']['cipher_des'] = disable
• node['windows_schannel']['cipher_rc2'] = disable
• node['windows_schannel']['cipher_rc4'] = disable
• node['windows_schannel']['cipher_3des'] = enable
• node['windows_schannel']['cipher_aes'] = enable

Hashes

• node['windows_schannel']['hash_md5'] = enable
• node['windows_schannel']['hash_sha'] = enable

Key Exchanges

• node['windows_schannel']['keyEx_dh'] = enable

License & Authors

• Author:: Gary Bright ([email protected])

Copyright 2016, Gary Bright

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.