The Exchange email diagnostic log level must be set to the lowest level.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-259653	EX19-MB-000032	SV-259653r942273_rule		Medium

Description
Log files help establish a history of activities and can be useful in detecting attack attempts or determining tuning adjustments to improve availability. Diagnostic logging, however, characteristically produces large volumes of data and requires care in managing the logs to prevent risk of disk capacity denial-of-service conditions. Exchange diagnostic logging is divided into 29 main "services", each of which has anywhere from two to 26 "categories" of events to be monitored. Each category may be set to one of four levels of logging: Lowest, Low, Medium, and High, depending on how much detail is required. Higher levels of detail require more disk space to store the audit material. Diagnostic logging is intended to help administrators debug problems with their systems, not as a general-purpose auditing tool. Because the diagnostic logs collect a great amount of information, the log files may grow large very quickly. Diagnostic log levels may be raised for limited periods of time when attempting to debug relevant pieces of Exchange functionality. Once debugging has finished, diagnostic log levels should be reduced again.

Description

Log files help establish a history of activities and can be useful in detecting attack attempts or determining tuning adjustments to improve availability. Diagnostic logging, however, characteristically produces large volumes of data and requires care in managing the logs to prevent risk of disk capacity denial-of-service conditions. Exchange diagnostic logging is divided into 29 main "services", each of which has anywhere from two to 26 "categories" of events to be monitored. Each category may be set to one of four levels of logging: Lowest, Low, Medium, and High, depending on how much detail is required. Higher levels of detail require more disk space to store the audit material. Diagnostic logging is intended to help administrators debug problems with their systems, not as a general-purpose auditing tool. Because the diagnostic logs collect a great amount of information, the log files may grow large very quickly. Diagnostic log levels may be raised for limited periods of time when attempting to debug relevant pieces of Exchange functionality. Once debugging has finished, diagnostic log levels should be reduced again.

STIG	Date
Microsoft Exchange 2019 Mailbox Server Security Technical Implementation Guide	2024-01-10

Details

Check Text ( C-63392r942271_chk )
Open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command: Get-EventLogLevel If the Diagnostic of any EventLevel is not set to "Lowest", this is a finding. Note: Default installation of Exchange has all Event Levels set to Lowest with exception of the following: MSExchange ADAccess\Topology - Low MSExchangeADAccess\Validation - Low MSExchange BackEndRehydration\Configuration - Low MSExchange BackEndRehydration\Server - 2 MSExchange OAuth\Configuration - Low MSExchange OAuth\Server - 2 MSExchange RBAC\RBAC - Low MSExchangeADTopology\Topology - Low All of these must be set to "Lowest".

Check Text ( C-63392r942271_chk )

Open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command:

Get-EventLogLevel

If the Diagnostic of any EventLevel is not set to "Lowest", this is a finding.

Note: Default installation of Exchange has all Event Levels set to Lowest with exception of the following:

MSExchange ADAccess\Topology - Low
MSExchangeADAccess\Validation - Low
MSExchange BackEndRehydration\Configuration - Low
MSExchange BackEndRehydration\Server - 2
MSExchange OAuth\Configuration - Low
MSExchange OAuth\Server - 2
MSExchange RBAC\RBAC - Low
MSExchangeADTopology\Topology - Low

All of these must be set to "Lowest".

Fix Text (F-63300r942272_fix)
Open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command: Set-EventLogLevel -Identity <'IdentityName\EventlogName'> -Level Lowest Note: The value must be in quotes.