Exchange Circular Logging must be disabled.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-228360	EX16-MB-000070	SV-228360r508018_rule		Low

Description
Logging provides a history of events performed and can also provide evidence of tampering or attack. Failure to create and preserve logs adds to the risk that suspicious events may go unnoticed and raises the potential that insufficient history will be available to investigate them. This setting controls how log files are written. If circular logging is enabled, one log file is stored with a default size of 1024 KB. Once the size limit has been reached, additional log entries overwrite the oldest log entries. If circular logging is disabled, once a log file reaches the size limit, a new log file is created. Mailbox should not use circular logging. Logs should be written to a partition separate from the operating system, with log protection and backups being incorporated into the overall System Security Plan.

Description

Logging provides a history of events performed and can also provide evidence of tampering or attack. Failure to create and preserve logs adds to the risk that suspicious events may go unnoticed and raises the potential that insufficient history will be available to investigate them. This setting controls how log files are written. If circular logging is enabled, one log file is stored with a default size of 1024 KB. Once the size limit has been reached, additional log entries overwrite the oldest log entries. If circular logging is disabled, once a log file reaches the size limit, a new log file is created. Mailbox should not use circular logging. Logs should be written to a partition separate from the operating system, with log protection and backups being incorporated into the overall System Security Plan.

STIG	Date
Microsoft Exchange 2016 Mailbox Server Security Technical Implementation Guide	2020-10-01

Details

Check Text ( C-30593r496876_chk )
Open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command: Get-MailboxDatabase \| Select Name, Identity, CircularLoggingEnabled If the value of "CircularLoggingEnabled" is not set to "False", this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-30578r496877_fix)
Open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command: Set-MailboxDatabase -Identity <'IdentityName'> -CircularLoggingEnabled $false Note: The value must be in single quotes.