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ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER must be set to true.


Overview

Finding ID Version Rule ID IA Controls Severity
V-223005 TCAT-AS-001690 SV-223005r615938_rule Medium
Description
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 ISO-8859-1. This can create the potential for a XSS attack. To defend against this, enforce_encoding_in_get_writer must be set to true.
STIG Date
Apache Tomcat Application Sever 9 Security Technical Implementation Guide 2021-06-15

Details

Check Text ( C-24677r426459_chk )
From the Tomcat server as a privileged user, run the following command:

sudo grep -i enforce_encoding /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service

If there are no results, or if the org.apache.catalina.connector.response.ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER is not ="true", this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-24666r426460_fix)
From the Tomcat server as a privileged user:

Edit the /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service file, and either add or edit the org.apache.catalina.connector.response.ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER setting.

Set the org.apache.catalina.connector.response.ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER=true

EXAMPLE:
Environment='CATALINA_OPTS -Dorg.apache.catalina.connector.response.ENFORCE_ENCODING_IN_GET_WRITER=true'

Restart the Tomcat server:
sudo systemctl restart tomcat
sudo systemctl daemon-reload