V-233617

Discussion

Applications, including PostgreSQL, must prevent unauthorized and unintended information transfer via shared system resources. Permitting only DBMS processes and authorized, administrative users to have access to the files where the database resides helps ensure that those files are not shared inappropriately and are not open to backdoor access and manipulation.

Check Content

Note: The following instructions use the PGDATA environment variable. See supplementary content APPENDIX-F for instructions on configuring PGDATA.

Review the permissions granted to users by the operating system/file system on the database files, database log files and database backup files. 

To verify that all files are owned by the database administrator and have the correct permissions, run the following as the database administrator (shown here as "postgres"):

$ sudo su - postgres
$ ls -lR ${PGDATA?}

If any files are not owned by the database administrator or allow anyone but the database administrator to read/write/execute, this is a finding.

If any user/role that is not an authorized system administrator with a need-to-know or database administrator with a need-to-know, or a system account for running PostgreSQL processes, is permitted to read/view any of these files, this is a finding.