Specifications
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Cisco NAC Appliance - Clean Access Manager Configuration Guide
OL-28003-01
Chapter 9 Configuring Cisco NAC Appliance for Agent Login and Client Posture Assessment
Configuring Agent-Based Posture Assessment
How the Agent Verifies Digital Signature and Trust on an Executable Program
On client machines where users will launch executables, you must add a Trust<N> key in the Windows
registry for the executable you want to run. It is the administrator's responsibility to populate the required
registry keys for the programs to be trusted by the Cisco NAC Agent service. The Cisco NAC Agent
verifies the launch program for a trusted digital signature as follows:
1. Verifies the digital signature - Ensures the digital signature is trusted.
2. Verifies the signer certificate information based on the information in the registry.
The related registry structure appears as follows:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CCAAgentStub\Trust<N>\
Certificate\2.5.4.3
\FileVersionInfo\ProductName
Where:
• <N> is a numeric number.
• For the entries under Certificate, each value can be exact case-insensitive.
• For the entries under FileVersionInfo, each value must appear in the corresponding value in the file
information stream, and can also be case-insensitive.
• All the entries under Certificate and FileVersionInfo must be satisfied (AND operations) to qualify
as a trusted target.
• If any of the Trust<N> chain is satisfied, the target is qualified to launch.
For example, the following key-value pairs in the registry qualify Cisco NAC Agent to be launched as
an application by non-admin:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CCAAgentStub\Trust0\Certificate\
2.5.4.3 with a value of “Cisco Systems”
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CCAAgentStub\Trust0\
FileVersionInfo\ProductName with a value of “Cisco NAC Agent”
Administrators should add registry entries to qualify all applications users will launch on client
machines. See Table 9-16 for a list of supported keys,
Table 9-16 Supported Launch Program Executable Keys for Trusted Digital Signature
Registry Key
Default
Value
(Decimal)
Valid
Range Supported Value Names
Location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CCAAgentStub\
Trust<N> —0 and
above
The Trust<N> chain is a digital signature for the
executable that the Clean Access Agent Stub uses to
determine whether or not Windows can trust the
executable before launching.