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← Back to VMware vSphere 7.0 vCenter Appliance Photon OS Security Technical Implementation Guide

V-256489

CAT II (Medium)

The Photon operating system must be configured to audit the execution of privileged functions.

Rule ID

SV-256489r958422_rule

STIG

VMware vSphere 7.0 vCenter Appliance Photon OS Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V1R4

CCIs

CCI-000135

Discussion

Misuse of privileged functions, either intentionally or unintentionally by authorized users, or by unauthorized external entities that have compromised information system accounts, is a serious and ongoing concern and can have significant adverse impacts on organizations. Auditing all actions by superusers is one way to detect such misuse and identify the risk from insider threats and the advanced persistent threat.

Check Content

At the command line, run the following command:

# auditctl -l | grep execve

Expected result:

-a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S execve -C uid!=euid -F euid=0 -F key=execpriv
-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S execve -C uid!=euid -F euid=0 -F key=execpriv
-a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S execve -C gid!=egid -F egid=0 -F key=execpriv
-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S execve -C gid!=egid -F egid=0 -F key=execpriv

If the output does not match the expected result, this is a finding.

Note: This check depends on the auditd service to be in a running state for accurate results. Enabling the auditd service is done in control PHTN-30-000013.

Fix Text

Navigate to and open:

/etc/audit/rules.d/audit.STIG.rules

Add the following lines:

-a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S execve -C uid!=euid -F euid=0 -F key=execpriv
-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S execve -C uid!=euid -F euid=0 -F key=execpriv
-a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S execve -C gid!=egid -F egid=0 -F key=execpriv
-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S execve -C gid!=egid -F egid=0 -F key=execpriv

At the command line, run the following command to load the new audit rules:

# /sbin/augenrules --load

Note: A new "audit.STIG.rules" file is provided for placement in "/etc/audit/rules.d" that contains all rules needed for auditd.

Note: An older "audit.STIG.rules" may exist if the file exists and references older "GEN" SRG IDs. This file can be removed and replaced as necessary with an updated one.