Benefits of the Cisco CDP Protocol

The benefits of using CDP include the ability to view the configuration of the devices on the network through other Cisco devices. CDP also enables devices to communication between devices running different network protocols because CDP runs on layer 2. In addition CDP facilitates network management by including the ability to provide the SNMP agent addresses to network management applications. The risks of CDP center around CDP providing information about Cisco devices, including platform information, version numbers and how the device is configured, to attackers that can then leverage that information to compromise the network.