V-268231

Discussion

Upon gaining access to a network device, an attacker will often first attempt to create a persistent method of reestablishing access. One way to accomplish this is to create a new account. Notification of account creation helps to mitigate this risk. Auditing account creation provides the necessary reconciliation that account management procedures are being followed. Without this audit trail, personnel without the proper authorization may gain access to critical network nodes.

Check Content

Verify the operating system must generate audit records for all account creations events.

Check the auditing rules in "/etc/audit/audit.rules" with the following command:
# grep -E "/etc/passwd|/etc/gshadow|/etc/shadow|/etc/security/opasswd|/etc/group|/etc/sudoers|/etc/sudoers.d/" /etc/audit/audit.rules

-w /etc/passwd -p wa -k identity
-w /etc/gshadow -p wa -k identity
-w /etc/shadow -p wa -k identity
-w /etc/security/opasswd -p wa -k identity
-w /etc/group -p wa -k identity
-w /etc/sudoers -p wa -k identity
-w /etc/sudoers.d/ -p wa -k identity

If the command does not return all the lines above, or one or more of the lines are commented out, this is a finding.