V-261450

Discussion

Once an attacker establishes initial access to a system, the attacker often attempts to create a persistent method of reestablishing access. One way to accomplish this is for the attacker to simply create a new account. Auditing account creation mitigates this risk. To address access requirements, SLEM 5 may be integrated with enterprise-level authentication/access/auditing mechanisms that meet or exceed access control policy requirements.

Check Content

Verify SLEM 5 generates an audit record when modifications occur to the "/etc/security/opasswd" file with the following command:

     > sudo auditctl -l | grep -w '/etc/security/opasswd'
     -w /etc/security/opasswd -p wa -k account_mod

If the command does not return a line that matches the example or the line is commented out, this is a finding.

Notes: The "-k" allows for specifying an arbitrary identifier. The string following "-k" does not need to match the example output above.