Message Privacy

USM supports privacy of messages. USM uses the CBC-DES Symmetric Encryption Protocol for encrypting and decrypting SNMPv3 packets. In the same way as with authentication, the same secret privacy key is used to encrypt and decrypt messages on both sides. Only the data portion is encrypted. The auth flag must be enabled and the security level must have privacy enabled to use encryption. Only the scopedPDU is encrypted. For more information, see Where USM Security Information Is Contained.

Currently, DES encryption is supported on the Solaris OS. DES encryption uses 56–bit key encryption. This level is the highest encryption level currently supported for DES, in this release of the Solaris software.