VMware vSphere 8.0 vCenter Appliance ESX Agent Manager (EAM) Security Technical Implementation Guide

Overview

Version	Date	Finding Count (34)			Downloads
1	2023-10-29	CAT I (High): 0	CAT II (Med): 34	CAT III (Low): 0	Excel	JSON	XML

STIG Description
This Security Technical Implementation Guide is published as a tool to improve the security of Department of Defense (DOD) information systems. The requirements are derived from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-53 and related documents. Comments or proposed revisions to this document should be sent via email to the following address: disa.stig_spt@mail.mil.

Available Profiles

Classified	Public	Sensitive
I - Mission Critical Classified	I - Mission Critical Public	I - Mission Critical Sensitive	II - Mission Support Classified	II - Mission Support Public	II - Mission Support Sensitive	III - Administrative Classified	III - Administrative Public	III - Administrative Sensitive

Findings (MAC III - Administrative Sensitive)

Finding ID	Severity	Title	Description
V-259029	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service example applications must be removed.	Tomcat provides example applications, documentation, and other directories in the default installation that do not serve a production use. These files must be deleted.
V-259028	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service xpoweredBy attribute must be disabled.	Individual connectors can be configured to display the Tomcat information to clients. This information can be used to identify server versions that can be useful to attackers for identifying...
V-259021	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service cookies must have the "http-only" flag set.	Cookies are a common way to save session state over the HTTP(S) protocol. If attackers can compromise session data stored in a cookie, they are better able to launch an attack against the server...
V-259020	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must configure the "setCharacterEncodingFilter" filter.	Invalid user input occurs when a user inserts data or characters into a hosted application's data entry field and the hosted application is unprepared to process that data. This results in...
V-259023	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service shutdown port must be disabled.	Tomcat by default listens on TCP port 8005 to accept shutdown requests. By connecting to this port and sending the SHUTDOWN command, all applications within Tomcat are halted. The shutdown port is...
V-259022	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service DefaultServlet must be set to "readonly" for "PUT" and "DELETE" commands.	The default servlet (or DefaultServlet) is a special servlet provided with Tomcat that is called when no other suitable page is found in a particular folder. The DefaultServlet serves static...
V-259025	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service directory listings parameter must be disabled.	Enumeration techniques, such as URL parameter manipulation, rely on being able to obtain information about the web server's directory structure by locating directories without default pages. In...
V-259024	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service debug parameter must be disabled.	Information needed by an attacker to begin looking for possible vulnerabilities in a web server includes any information about the web server and plug-ins or modules being used. When debugging or...
V-259027	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must have Autodeploy disabled.	Tomcat allows auto-deployment of applications while it is running. This can allow untested or malicious applications to be automatically loaded into production. Autodeploy must be disabled in production.
V-259026	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service deployXML attribute must be disabled.	The Host element controls deployment. Automatic deployment allows for simpler management but also makes it easier for an attacker to deploy a malicious application. Automatic deployment is...
V-259003	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must limit the number of maximum concurrent connections permitted.	Resource exhaustion can occur when an unlimited number of concurrent requests are allowed on a website, facilitating a denial-of-service attack. Unless the number of requests is controlled, the...
V-259007	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service logs folder permissions must be set correctly.	Log data is essential in the investigation of events. The accuracy of the information is always pertinent. One of the first steps an attacker will take is the modification or deletion of log...
V-259006	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must produce log records containing sufficient information regarding event details.	Remote access can be exploited by an attacker to compromise the server. By recording all remote access activities, it will be possible to determine the attacker's location, intent, and degree of...
V-259005	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must initiate session logging upon startup.	Logging must be started as soon as possible when a service starts and as late as possible when a service is stopped. Many forms of suspicious actions can be detected by analyzing logs for...
V-259004	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service cookies must have secure flag set.	The secure flag is an option that can be set by the application server when sending a new cookie to the user within an HTTP Response. The purpose of the secure flag is to prevent cookies from...
V-259009	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must disable stack tracing.	Stack tracing provides debugging information from the application call stacks when a runtime error is encountered. If stack tracing is left enabled, Tomcat will provide this call stack information...
V-259008	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must limit privileges for creating or modifying hosted application shared files.	Application servers have the ability to specify that the hosted applications use shared libraries. The application server must have a capability to divide roles based upon duties wherein one...
V-259010	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must be configured to use a specified IP address and port.	The server must be configured to listen on a specified IP address and port. Without specifying an IP address and port for server to use, the server will listen on all IP addresses...
V-259016	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must offload log records onto a different system or media from the system being logged.	Information system logging capability is critical for accurate forensic analysis. Log record content that may be necessary to satisfy the requirement of this control includes, but is not limited...
V-259012	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must be configured to fail to a known safe state if system initialization fails.	Determining a safe state for failure and weighing that against a potential denial of service for users depends on what type of application the web server is hosting. It is preferable that the...
V-259013	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must set URIEncoding to UTF-8.	Invalid user input occurs when a user inserts data or characters into a hosted application's data entry field and the hosted application is unprepared to process that data. This results in...
V-259014	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service "ErrorReportValve showServerInfo" must be set to "false".	The Error Report Valve is a simple error handler for HTTP status codes that will generate and return HTML error pages. It can also be configured to return predefined static HTML pages for specific...
V-259015	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must set an inactive timeout for sessions.	Leaving sessions open indefinitely is a major security risk. An attacker can easily use an already authenticated session to access the hosted application as the previously authenticated user. By...
V-259036	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service host-manager webapp must be removed.	Tomcat provides host management functionality through either a default host-manager webapp or through local editing of the configuration files. The host-manager webapp files must be deleted, and...
V-259011	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must be configured to limit data exposure between applications.	If RECYCLE_FACADES is true or if a security manager is in use, a new facade object will be created for each request. This reduces the chances that a bug in an application might expose data from...
V-259034	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must enable "ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER".	Some clients try to guess the character encoding of text media when the mandated default of ISO-8859-1 should be used. Some browsers will interpret as UTF-7 when the characters are safe for...
V-259035	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service manager webapp must be removed.	Tomcat provides management functionality through either a default manager webapp or through local editing of the configuration files. The manager webapp files must be deleted, and administration...
V-259032	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service files must have permissions in an out-of-the-box state.	As a rule, accounts on a web server are to be kept to a minimum. Only administrators, web managers, developers, auditors, and web authors require accounts on the machine hosting the web server....
V-259033	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must disable "ALLOW_BACKSLASH".	When Tomcat is installed behind a proxy configured to only allow access to certain contexts (web applications), an HTTP request containing "/\../" may allow attackers to work around the proxy...
V-259030	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service default ROOT web application must be removed.	The default ROOT web application includes the version of Tomcat being used, links to Tomcat documentation, examples, FAQs, and mailing lists. The default ROOT web application must be removed from...
V-259017	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must enable STRICT_SERVLET_COMPLIANCE.	Strict Servlet Compliance forces Tomcat to adhere to standards specifications including but not limited to RFC2109. RFC2109 sets the standard for HTTP session management. This setting affects...
V-259018	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must limit the amount of time that each Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection is kept alive.	Denial of service (DoS) is one threat against web servers. Many DoS attacks attempt to consume web server resources in such a way that no more resources are available to satisfy legitimate...
V-259019	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must limit the number of times that each Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection is kept alive.	KeepAlive provides long lived HTTP sessions that allow multiple requests to be sent over the same connection. Enabling KeepAlive mitigates the effects of several types of denial-of-service...
V-259031	Medium	The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service default documentation must be removed.	Tomcat provides documentation and other directories in the default installation that do not serve a production use. These files must be deleted.