The audit system must be configured to audit all attempts to alter system time through settimeofday.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-217952	RHEL-06-000167	SV-217952r505923_rule		Low

Description
Arbitrary changes to the system time can be used to obfuscate nefarious activities in log files, as well as to confuse network services that are highly dependent upon an accurate system time (such as sshd). All changes to the system time should be audited.

STIG	Date
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2020-09-03

Details

Check Text ( C-19433r376871_chk )

To determine if the system is configured to audit calls to the "settimeofday" system call, run the following command: $ sudo grep -w "settimeofday" /etc/audit/audit.rules -a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S settimeofday -k audit_time_rules -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S settimeofday -k audit_time_rules If the system is 64-bit and does not return a rule for both "b32" and "b64" architectures, this is a finding. If the system is not configured to the "settimeofday" syscall, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-19431r376872_fix)
Add the following to "/etc/audit/audit.rules": # audit_time_rules -a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S settimeofday -k audit_time_rules If the system is 64-bit, then also add the following: # audit_time_rules -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S settimeofday -k audit_time_rules