PA Server Monitor Product Security

Non-Cloud

All settings, databases, network information, etc., stays on your servers. The product is not cloud-based.

Secure SSL Connections

By default, PA Server Monitor uses SSL/TLS secured HTTP communications between the Console, Satellites and the Central Monitoring Service. If encryption is turned off, remote connections (remote Consoles and Satellites) are not allowed.

The SSL/TLS connection can run on any port, and defaults to port 81.

OpenSSL and Ciphers

SSL/TLS is implemented using the latest version of OpenSSL

This means notable exploits are quickly patched, including:

• SWEET32
• LogJam
• POODLE
• ChangeCipherSpec
• Heartbleed

The embedded HTTPS server supports Forward Secrecy by supporting ephemeral Diffie-Hellman key exchange, depending on the encryption cipher that is negotiated between client and server.

There are two SSL/TLS security settings available which can be changed in Settings > HTTP Server Settings.

Supported Protocols

Cipher Strength

Cipher names and information can be found at https://www.openssl.org/docs/apps/ciphers.html

For an alternate cipher override value and discussion, see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3775836/disable-weak-ciphers-in-ssl-connection.

Self-Signed Certificate

By default, a self-signed SSL certificate is used, but you may replace that with your own certificate using the instructions at:
www.poweradmin.com/help/latestsmhelp.aspx?page=report_other_ssl_cert.aspx

The generated self-signed SSL certificates are currently 2048 bit. The default signature algorithm is sha1RSA, signature algorithm of sha1, and the public key is RSA 2048 bits.

The self-signed certificates can be easily regenerated at any time.

HTTPS Server Limits

The internal HTTPS server is very small and light. It supports a fixed number of connections, and each connection will only upload or download a fixed amount of data. These limits are registry configurable.

Fuzzing/Scanning

For many years, a number of customers regularly fuzz test and run vulnerability scanners on our software (and other software that they run on site). Any time an issue is found it is fixed within two business days. Most of the time it has involved adding an HTTP header, such as X-XSS-Protection: 1, X-Frame-Options:SAMEORIGIN, etc. It has now been a number of years since any problems have been found, and we always welcome feedback. We recently asked a white-hat tester to look at our software and nothing was found.

User Credentials

There are a variety of different credentials that might be put into the system depending on monitoring needs:

• Windows
• SNMP
• Web Proxy Server
• ODBC Database Connection String
• SMTP Server
• Website
• FTP Server
• Active Directory/LDAP
• SSL Certificate Private Key
• VMWare ESX

ALL of these credentials are encrypted using Microsoft's recommended method of storing credentials via the CryptProtectData function. This encrypts the credentials such that they can only be decrypted on the computer where they are stored using an encryption key that is managed by the operating system.

The encrypted credentials are stored in the registry at:

Disabling Export

There are a few places in the product where the configuration can be exported to disk, with the option to export credentials. This export option can be completely disabled by setting:

Other protected settings are discussed here: Security Protected Settings.

Database Access

By default, an embedded SQLite database is used to store data. This can be changed to store data in a MS SQL Server database. In that case, the database login needs access to create, update and delete tables and indices. It does not need access to, nor does it try to use any statements that would modify, create or delete individual databases, including the database it stores data in.