Control-M MFT Security

The following table lists the available options you can use to secure and encrypt connections in Control-M MFT.

Option

Description

PGP encryption

For push or pull actions (where the File Transfer job initiates a connection to a remote server directly and uploads or downloads a file), you can use PGP templates in File Transfer jobs to encrypt a file before uploading to remote server, or decrypt it after downloading to a local host. For more information, see PGP template management.

NOTE: BMC does not provide the PGP utility. You must install it separately.

For incoming files from external partners (where they initiate the connection to the Control-M MFT Enterprise Gateway and upload an encrypted file to the Hub), you can either use processing rules or File Watcher jobs to decrypt. For more information, see Creating an MFT Enterprise post processing rule.

EXAMPLE: Define a rule with the condition files from specific partner that has a pgp extension and run a script that decrypts them so they are decrypted in the Hub's file system.

Or, define a file watcher job that watches the specific folder, downloads the file locally, and decrypts it. This can be followed by another job that sends the decrypted file to an application that can process it.

SFTP (SSH)

MFT Client:

  • Uses libraries that depend on JCE
  • Generates a key pair (openssh libs, minimum key length is 1024)
  • The private/public keys are stored in a local file system, with rw permission only for the Control-M /Agent account.
  • The public key must be stored in a remote SSH server’s authorized_keys file.
  • Fingerprints of remote servers (hostkeys) are stored in a local file (known_hosts) to allow verifying remote host after connecting.
  • By default, the first connection is accepted, and block future connections if the host key has changed. This behavior can be changed.

Supported Algorithms:

  • Cipher:blowfish-cbc,3des-cbc,aes128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,3des-ctr,arcfour,arcfour128,arcfour256
  • Key exchange: diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group1-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,ecdh-sha2-nistp256,ecdh-sha2-nistp384,ecdh-sha2-nistp521
  • MAC: hmac-md5, hmac-sha1, hmac-md5-96, hmac-sha1-96
  • Host key type: ssh-dss,ssh-rsa,ecdsa-sha2-nistp256,ecdsa-sha2-nistp384,ecdsa-sha2-nistp521

MFT Server:

  • File Transfer jobs support both password and key authentication.
  • FTS/Hub accepts clients with both password and key authentication.
  • FTS/Hub also has authorized_keys file where the Administrator can add other user keys (ssh-rsa format) for remote users to connect.

Supported algorithms:

  • Cipher: aes128cbc, aes128ctr, aes192cbc, aes192ctr, aes256cbc, aes256ctr, arcfour128, arcfour256, blowfishcbc, tripledescbc, aes128-gcm@openssh.com, aes256-gcm@openssh.com, chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com
  • Key exchange: diffie-hellman-group1-sha1, diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256, diffie-hellman-group14-sha1, diffie-hellman-group14-sha256 , diffie-hellman-group15-sha512, diffie-hellman-group16-sha512, diffie-hellman-group17-sha512, diffie-hellman-group18-sha512 , ecdh-sha2-nistp256, ecdh-sha2-nistp384, ecdh-sha2-nistp521, curve25519-sha256, curve25519-sha256@libssh.org, curve448-sha512
  • MAC: hmac-md5, hmac-md5-96, hmac-sha1, hmac-sha1-96, hmac-sha2-256, hmac-sha2-512, hmac-sha1-etm@openssh.com, hmac-sha2-256-etm@openssh.com, hmac-sha2-512-etm@openssh.com

SSL/TLS

  • File Transfer jobs and FTS support FTP connection over SSL (FTPS)
  • Hub supports HTTPS
  • SSL/TLS is supported in Encryption only, Server Authentication only, and Both Server and Client authentication.
  • Supports TLS1.2
  • FTP Client supports both Explicit/Implicit SSL, CCC/CDC.
  • Several keystore files for storing remote servers’ CA x.509 certificates and a few keystores for the server to store its and clients certificates and keys (for different protocols: FTPS, HTTPS, AS2)
  • Supports PKCS12 and BCFKS keystore formats.
  • For FTPS, we support more than 70 different ciphers by default. On FIPS mode, some ciphers are disabled.

Secured data in configurations

  • MFT secure data is stored encrypted with AES256 (local key that can be rotated)
  • Secure data is also transferred encrypted with AES256
  • External user passwords are stored hashed (cannot be decrypted)
  • Control-M components can communicate over SSL

Parent Topic

Configuration procedures