The TRACE method must be disabled.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-26325	WA00550 A22	SV-33227r1_rule		Medium

Description
Diagnostics help establish a history of activities, and can be useful in detecting attack attempts or determining tuning adjustments to improve server availability. Trace logs are essential to the investigation and prosecution of unauthorized access to web server software and data. However, in standard production operations, use of diagnostics may reveal undiscovered vulnerabilities and ultimately, to compromise of the data. Because of the potential for abuse, the HTTP Trace method should be disabled.

Description

Diagnostics help establish a history of activities, and can be useful in detecting attack attempts or determining tuning adjustments to improve server availability. Trace logs are essential to the investigation and prosecution of unauthorized access to web server software and data. However, in standard production operations, use of diagnostics may reveal undiscovered vulnerabilities and ultimately, to compromise of the data. Because of the potential for abuse, the HTTP Trace method should be disabled.

STIG	Date
APACHE SERVER 2.2 for Unix Security Technical Implementation Guide	2017-10-02

Details

Check Text ( C-33781r1_chk )
Enter the following command: grep "TraceEnable" /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf. Review the results for the following directive: TraceEnable. For any enabled TraceEnable directives ensure they are part of the server level configuration (i.e. not nested in a or directive). Also ensure that the TraceEnable directive is set to “Off”. If the TraceEnable directive is not part of the server level configuration and/or is not set to “Off”, this is a finding. If the directive does not exist in the conf file, this is a finding because the default value is "On".

Check Text ( C-33781r1_chk )

Enter the following command:

grep "TraceEnable" /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf.

Review the results for the following directive:

TraceEnable.

For any enabled TraceEnable directives ensure they are part of the server level configuration (i.e. not nested in a or directive). Also ensure that the TraceEnable directive is set to “Off”.

If the TraceEnable directive is not part of the server level configuration and/or is not set to “Off”, this is a finding.

If the directive does not exist in the conf file, this is a finding because the default value is "On".

Fix Text (F-29424r1_fix)
Edit the httpd.conf file and add or set the value of EnableTrace to "Off".