Any info on ASA hardening

Question

Is the ASA pre-hardened? Any info about hardening this ASA?

Answer 1

Hi Michael,I understand now where you are coming from and thank you for clear explanation. The answer to your question I think is short. The cisco PIX/ASA firewalls by default comes to the end users already pre-hardened,to prove this a firewall out of the box comes with default configuration.
The Firewall will at least have there important components, that is,PIX OS code,
inside,and outside interfaces. As you may well know the two interfaces are outside and inside interface. The default firewall configuration will always comes as such with outside interface with security level of(0 Zero)as the un-trusted interface or interface facing outside world, security 0 with no firewall implicit inbound access rules for connection means nothing will come inbound as requested traffic from outside as all inbound traffic is blocked. In other words, all TCP/UDP ports are blocked by default, on the other hand the inside interface comes as default with security level of 100 trusted side and some but not all ports in this interface are opened to go outbound. This is a fundamental aspect of the firewall, until you explicitly start opening or allowing inbound traffic then there is where DMZ and other aspect of security architecture comes in place such as IPS or intrution detection systems etc..
I hope I have contributed to answer your question, I could not find a document explaining the hardening of a firewall because I don't think there isn't one, however, there are many documents in security design guidelines that shows best practice for securing networks from either outside and/or internally.. I found though a link where at least says all ports by default are blocked for outside interface security 0.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6120/products_configuration_example09186a0080862017.shtml#intro
rate any helpful post if it helps !
Rgds
Jorge