A network technician is preparing to establish a secure management baseline on a newly unboxed switch prior to connecting it to the production network. Place the following administrative hardening steps in the correct chronological order from first to last.
- 1Change default administrative credentials and disable unencrypted management services such as Telnet and HTTP.
- 2Generate cryptographic key pairs and enable secure management protocols like SSH and HTTPS.
- 3Administratively shut down unused physical ports and reassign them to an isolated non-routable VLAN.
- 4Save the active running configuration to persistent startup memory (NVRAM).
Answer
The baseline hardening process begins by changing default administrative passwords and removing cleartext services, followed by generating crypto keys to enable SSH/HTTPS. Next, unused ports are administratively disabled and isolated, and finally, the configuration is saved to NVRAM.
The correct chronological process begins with securing initial local access by changing default passwords and turning off insecure cleartext protocols (Telnet/HTTP). Next, cryptographic keys are generated to support encrypted management protocols (SSH/HTTPS). After secure management is enabled, physical switch ports are hardened by disabling unused interfaces and placing them in an isolated VLAN. Finally, the running configuration must be written to NVRAM so all security policies remain active across reboots.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
Switch Baseline Hardening Sequence