The operating system must protect non-local maintenance sessions through the use of a strong authenticator tightly bound to the user.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
SRG-OS-000128-ESXI5-PNF	SRG-OS-000128-ESXI5-PNF	SRG-OS-000128-ESXI5-PNF_rule		Medium

Description
Non-local maintenance and diagnostic activities are those activities conducted by individuals communicating through a network, either an external network (e.g., the Internet) or an internal network. Identification and authentication techniques used in the establishment of non-local maintenance and diagnostic sessions must be accomplished via strong authenticator (i.e., two factor authentication). Permanent not a finding - SSH (disabled by default and unused due to Lockdown Mode requirement) is configured for "Protocol 2". All versions of VMware products, including all releases of vCenter Server use X.509 certificates to encrypt session information sent over SSL (secure sockets layer protocol) connections between server and client components such as ESXi-v5. vCenter communicates/authenticates to ESXi as a non-privileged user and then performs a series of tasks as "root/administrator".

Description

Non-local maintenance and diagnostic activities are those activities conducted by individuals communicating through a network, either an external network (e.g., the Internet) or an internal network. Identification and authentication techniques used in the establishment of non-local maintenance and diagnostic sessions must be accomplished via strong authenticator (i.e., two factor authentication). Permanent not a finding - SSH (disabled by default and unused due to Lockdown Mode requirement) is configured for "Protocol 2". All versions of VMware products, including all releases of vCenter Server use X.509 certificates to encrypt session information sent over SSL (secure sockets layer protocol) connections between server and client components such as ESXi-v5. vCenter communicates/authenticates to ESXi as a non-privileged user and then performs a series of tasks as "root/administrator".

STIG	Date
VMware ESXi v5 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2013-01-15

Details

Check Text ( C-SRG-OS-000128-ESXI5-PNF_chk )
ESXi supports this requirement and cannot be configured to be out of compliance. This is a permanent not a finding.

Fix Text (F-SRG-OS-000128-ESXI5-PNF_fix)
This requirement is permanent not a finding. No fix is required.