The Cisco switch must be configured to have Gratuitous ARP disabled on all external interfaces.


Overview

Finding ID Version Rule ID IA Controls Severity
V-101713 CISC-RT-000150 SV-110817r1_rule Medium
Description
A gratuitous ARP is an ARP broadcast in which the source and destination MAC addresses are the same. It is used to inform the network about a host IP address. A spoofed gratuitous ARP message can cause network mapping information to be stored incorrectly, causing network malfunction.
STIG Date
Cisco IOS-XE Switch RTR Security Technical Implementation Guide 2020-05-20

Details

Check Text ( C-100601r1_chk )
Review the configuration to determine if gratuitous ARP is disabled. The following command should not be found in the switch configuration:

ip gratuitous-arps

Note: With Cisco IOS, Gratuitous ARP is enabled and disabled globally.

If gratuitous ARP is enabled on any external interface, this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-107397r1_fix)
Disable gratuitous ARP as shown in the example below:

SW1(config)#no ip gratuitous-arps