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Security
Configure different security features to adequately protect business assets and resources in the data model when using BigFix Inventory.
Assuring compliance with federal encryption standards
You can configure BigFix Inventory to be compliant with the Federal Information Processing Standard requirements that are related to encryption.
SP800-131 compliance
SP800-131 requires longer key lengths and stronger cryptography. The specification also provides a transition configuration to enable users to move to a strict enforcement of SP800-131.

Security
Configure different security features to adequately protect business assets and resources in the data model when using BigFix Inventory.
- Flow of data
  There are several different interactions that occur between the components of the BigFix Inventory infrastructure and between the user and tool.
- Security configuration scenarios
  Check what security options need to be enabled on the BigFix server and the BigFix Inventory server to achieve each of the supported security scenarios.
- Configuring database connection encryption
  You can encrypt the connection between BigFix Inventory server and the BigFix Inventory database. Encryption is established between BigFix Inventory server and the database engine using a JDBC driver. You can encrypt the connection while upgrading the server.
- Configuring secure communication
  To ensure secure communication, BigFix Inventory uses public key cryptography, which is based on algorithms that use two separate keys, a private key and a public key. This key pair is used to encrypt and decrypt communication
- Assuring compliance with federal encryption standards
  You can configure BigFix Inventory to be compliant with the Federal Information Processing Standard requirements that are related to encryption.
  - Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2
    Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) are standards and guidelines that are issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for federal government computer systems.
  - Configuring the server to achieve FIPS compliance
    You can assure compliance with the FIPS 140-2 standard by modifying the configuration properties for the underlying application server.
  - SP800-131 compliance
    SP800-131 requires longer key lengths and stronger cryptography. The specification also provides a transition configuration to enable users to move to a strict enforcement of SP800-131.
  - Enabling SP800-131 compliance
    You can set up a BigFix Inventory profile to meet the SP800-131 requirement that is originated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
- Authenticating users with LDAP
  BigFix Inventory supports authentication through a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server. To use this feature, you must configure the BigFix Inventory server.
- Configuring and enabling single sign-on (SSO)
  Available from 9.2.1. You can now use the two-factor authentication and use SSO to log on to BigFix Inventory and maintain login consistency with other applications in the enterprise. You can configure BigFix Inventory to use two-factor authentication with single sign-on based either on the exchange of Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML 2.0) token and Microsoft™ Active Directory Federation Services as Identity Provider or you can use the IBM Lightweight Third-Party Authentication (LTPA) technology and IBM Security Access Manager for Web as the authentication service.
- Configuring passwords and encryption mechanisms
  To improve the application security, define a security policy for user passwords. You can also configure passwords and encryption mechanisms for the keystore in which the passwords are stored, and the BigFix Inventory database.
- Configuring user account lockout
  Available from 9.2.8. By default, user account is locked for 5 minutes after the user attempts to log in to BigFix Inventory more than 10 times within 5 minutes. You can change the default settings or disable the user account lockout.
- Configuring VM Manager tool to accept trusted VM manager certificates
  By default, the VM Manager tool accepts all VM manager certificates regardless of whether they are trusted or not. You can change the default behavior to ensure that only trusted certificates are accepted by the VM Manager tool.
- Relays
  Relays lighten both upstream and downstream burdens on the server. Rather than communicating directly with a server, clients can instead be instructed to communicate with designated relays, considerably reducing both server load and client and server network traffic.

SP800-131 compliance

SP800-131 requires longer key lengths and stronger cryptography. The specification also provides a transition configuration to enable users to move to a strict enforcement of SP800-131.

The transition configuration also enables users to run with a mixture of settings from both FIPS140-2 and SP800-131. SP800-131 can be run in two modes, transition and strict. The transition mode is offered to give you a setting to move your environment to SP800-131 strict mode. In transition mode, it is optional to use the SP800-131 required certificates and to set the protocol to SP800-131.

The following requirements must be fulfilled to allow for the strict enforcement of SP800-131:

The use of the TLS version 1.2 protocol for the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) context.
Certificates must have a minimum length of 2048 bytes. An Elliptic Curve (EC) certificate requires a minimum size of 244-bit curves.
Certificates must be signed with a signature algorithm of SHA256, SHA384, or SHA512. Valid signature algorithms include:
- SHA256 with RSA
- SHA384 with RSA
- SHA512 with RSA
- SHA256 with ECDSA
- SHA384 with ECDSA
- SHA512 with ECDSA
SP800-131 approved cipher suites.

For more information about the SP800-131 standard, see the web site run by National Institute of Standards and Technology.