User`s guide

–44–
MasterSwitch plus
Security and Help Features
Security Features
Overview
MasterSwitch
plus
provides several different security options,
depending on the access interface you are using. This chapter
describes these individual security elements. In general, MasterSwitch
plus
provides a reasonable level of access and authentication control.
As a network device that passes information across the network,
MasterSwitch
plus
is subject to the same exposure as other devices on
the network. Protecting intranet networks that are connected to external
networks (e.g., the Internet) with devices such as firewalls is also an
important element in security.
Port assignments
It is possible to define the
TCP
ports that the Telnet,
FTP
,andWeb
servers are listening for. These ports are initially set at the standard
“well known port” for the particular protocol. To hide the interfaces, you
can use arbitrary port numbers from
5000–65535
.Whenaninterface
uses a non-standard port, it is required to specify the port when using a
client interface, such as a Web browser. Hiding the servers provides a
level of security. The non-standard port address becomes an extra
“password.”
User names,
passwords and
community names
The Administrator, Device Manager, and Outlet User names and
passwords are for logging on to the Control Console and Web
interfaces. All user names, passwords, and community names for
SNMP
are transferred over the network as plain text. A user who is
capable of monitoring the network traffic can determine the user names
and passwords required to access MasterSwitch
plus
. Any similar
device using Telnet, a Web server, or an
SNMP
v1 agent will have the
same constraints because of the limitations in the protocols.
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