RHEL 8 audit system must protect auditing rules from unauthorized change.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-230402	RHEL-08-030121	SV-230402r627750_rule		Medium

Description
Unauthorized disclosure of audit records can reveal system and configuration data to attackers, thus compromising its confidentiality. Audit information includes all information (e.g., audit records, audit settings, audit reports) needed to successfully audit RHEL 8 system activity. In immutable mode, unauthorized users cannot execute changes to the audit system to potentially hide malicious activity and then put the audit rules back. A system reboot would be noticeable and a system administrator could then investigate the unauthorized changes. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000057-GPOS-00027, SRG-OS-000058-GPOS-00028, SRG-OS-000059-GPOS-00029

Description

Unauthorized disclosure of audit records can reveal system and configuration data to attackers, thus compromising its confidentiality. Audit information includes all information (e.g., audit records, audit settings, audit reports) needed to successfully audit RHEL 8 system activity. In immutable mode, unauthorized users cannot execute changes to the audit system to potentially hide malicious activity and then put the audit rules back. A system reboot would be noticeable and a system administrator could then investigate the unauthorized changes. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000057-GPOS-00027, SRG-OS-000058-GPOS-00028, SRG-OS-000059-GPOS-00029

STIG	Date
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2023-09-11

Details

Check Text ( C-33071r567952_chk )
Verify the audit system prevents unauthorized changes with the following command: $ sudo grep "^\s*[^#]" /etc/audit/audit.rules \| tail -1 -e 2 If the audit system is not set to be immutable by adding the "-e 2" option to the "/etc/audit/audit.rules", this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-33046r567953_fix)
Configure the audit system to set the audit rules to be immutable by adding the following line to "/etc/audit/rules.d/audit.rules" -e 2 Note: Once set, the system must be rebooted for auditing to be changed. It is recommended to add this option as the last step in securing the system.