VMware vSphere 7.0 vCenter Appliance Lookup Service Security Technical Implementation Guide

Overview

Version	Date	Finding Count (31)			Downloads
1	2023-06-15 2023-02-21	CAT I (High): 0	CAT II (Med): 31	CAT III (Low): 0	Excel	JSON	XML

STIG Description
This Security Technical Implementation Guide is published as a tool to improve the security of Department of Defense (DOD) information systems. The requirements are derived from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-53 and related documents. Comments or proposed revisions to this document should be sent via email to the following address: disa.stig_spt@mail.mil.

Available Profiles

Classified	Public	Sensitive
I - Mission Critical Classified	I - Mission Critical Public	I - Mission Critical Sensitive	II - Mission Support Classified	II - Mission Support Public	II - Mission Support Sensitive	III - Administrative Classified	III - Administrative Public	III - Administrative Sensitive

Findings (MAC III - Administrative Sensitive)

Finding ID	Severity	Title	Description
V-256709	Medium	Lookup Service must protect cookies from cross-site scripting (XSS).	Cookies are a common way to save session state over the HTTP(S) protocol. If an attacker can compromise session data stored in a cookie, they are better able to launch an attack against the server...
V-256708	Medium	Lookup Service must limit the maximum size of a POST request.	The "maxPostSize" value is the maximum size in bytes of the POST that will be handled by the container FORM URL parameter parsing. Limit its size to reduce exposure to a denial-of-service...
V-256707	Medium	Lookup Service must limit the number of concurrent connections permitted.	Resource exhaustion can occur when an unlimited number of concurrent requests are allowed on a website, facilitating a denial-of-service attack. Unless the number of requests is controlled, the...
V-256706	Medium	Lookup Service must limit the amount of time that each Transport Control Protocol (TCP) connection is kept alive.	Denial of service (DoS) is one threat against web servers. Many DoS attacks attempt to consume web server resources in such a way that no more resources are available to satisfy legitimate...
V-256727	Medium	The Lookup Service must not show directory listings.	Enumeration techniques, such as URL parameter manipulation, rely on being able to obtain information about the web server's directory structure by locating directories without default pages. In...
V-256726	Medium	Lookup Service must set the welcome-file node to a default web page.	Enumeration techniques, such as URL parameter manipulation, rely on being able to obtain information about the web server's directory structure by locating directories without default pages. In...
V-256725	Medium	Lookup Service must set URIEncoding to UTF-8.	Invalid user input occurs when a user inserts data or characters into a hosted application's data entry field and the hosted application is unprepared to process that data. This results in...
V-256724	Medium	Lookup Service must limit the number of allowed connections.	Limiting the number of established connections is a basic denial-of-service protection and a best practice. Servers where the limit is too high or unlimited could run out of system resources and...
V-256723	Medium	Lookup Service must fail to a known safe state if system initialization fails, shutdown fails, or aborts fail.	Determining a safe state for failure and weighing that against a potential denial of service for users depends on what type of application the web server is hosting. For the Lookup Service, it is...
V-256722	Medium	Lookup Service directory tree must have permissions in an out-of-the-box state.	As a rule, accounts on a web server are to be kept to a minimum. Only administrators, web managers, developers, auditors, and web authors require accounts on the machine hosting the web server....
V-256721	Medium	Lookup Service must not have any symbolic links in the web content directory tree.	A web server is designed to deliver content and execute scripts or applications on the request of a client or user. Containing user requests to files in the directory tree of the hosted web...
V-256720	Medium	Lookup Service must be configured with memory leak protection.	The Java Runtime environment can cause a memory leak or lock files under certain conditions. Without memory leak protection, Lookup Service can continue to consume system resources, which will...
V-256729	Medium	Lookup Service must be configured to show error pages with minimal information.	Web servers will often display error messages to client users, including enough information to aid in the debugging of the error. The information given back in error messages may display the web...
V-256728	Medium	Lookup Service must be configured to hide the server version.	Web servers will often display error messages to client users, including enough information to aid in the debugging of the error. The information given back in error messages may display the web...
V-256718	Medium	Lookup Service must have mappings set for Java servlet pages.	Resource mapping is the process of tying a particular file type to a process in the web server that can serve that type of file to a requesting client and identify which file types are not to be...
V-256719	Medium	Lookup Service must not have the Web Distributed Authoring (WebDAV) servlet installed.	WebDAV is an extension to the HTTP protocol that, when developed, was meant to allow users to create, change, and move documents on a server, typically a web server or web share. WebDAV is not...
V-256712	Medium	Lookup Service log files must only be accessible by privileged users.	Log data is essential in the investigation of events. If log data were to become compromised, competent forensic analysis and discovery of the true source of potentially malicious system activity...
V-256713	Medium	Lookup Service application files must be verified for their integrity.	Verifying the Lookup Service application code is unchanged from its shipping state is essential for file validation and nonrepudiation of the Lookup Service. There is no reason the MD5 hash of the...
V-256710	Medium	Lookup Service must record user access in a format that enables monitoring of remote access.	Remote access can be exploited by an attacker to compromise the server. By recording all remote access activities, it will be possible to determine the attacker's location, intent, and degree of...
V-256711	Medium	Lookup Service must generate log records for system startup and shutdown.	Logging must be started as soon as possible when a service starts and when a service is stopped. Many forms of suspicious actions can be detected by analyzing logs for unexpected service starts...
V-256716	Medium	Lookup Service must be configured to limit access to internal packages.	The "package.access" entry in the "catalina.properties" file implements access control at the package level. When properly configured, a Security Exception will be reported if an errant or...
V-256717	Medium	Lookup Service must have Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIMEs) that invoke operating system shell programs disabled.	MIME mappings tell the Lookup Service what type of program various file types and extensions are and what external utilities or programs are needed to execute the file type. By ensuring that...
V-256714	Medium	Lookup Service must only run one webapp.	VMware ships Lookup Service on the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) with one webapp. Any other path is potentially malicious and must be removed.
V-256715	Medium	Lookup Service must not be configured with the "UserDatabaseRealm" enabled.	The Lookup Service performs user authentication at the application level and not through Tomcat. By default, there is no configuration for the "UserDatabaseRealm" Tomcat authentication mechanism....
V-256734	Medium	Lookup Service must be configured with the appropriate ports.	Web servers provide numerous processes, features, and functionalities that use TCP/IP ports. Some of these processes may be deemed unnecessary or too unsecure to run on a production system. The...
V-256735	Medium	Lookup Service must disable the shutdown port.	An attacker has at least two reasons to stop a web server. The first is to cause a denial of service, and the second is to put in place changes the attacker made to the web server configuration....
V-256736	Medium	Lookup Service must set the secure flag for cookies.	The secure flag is an option that can be set by the application server when sending a new cookie to the user within an HTTP Response. The purpose of the secure flag is to prevent cookies from...
V-256730	Medium	Lookup Service must not enable support for TRACE requests.	"TRACE" is a technique for a user to request internal information about Tomcat. This is useful during product development but should not be enabled in production. Allowing an attacker to conduct a...
V-256731	Medium	Lookup Service must have the debug option turned off.	Information needed by an attacker to begin looking for possible vulnerabilities in a web server includes any information about the web server and plug-ins or modules being used. When debugging or...
V-256732	Medium	Lookup Service must use a logging mechanism that is configured to allocate log record storage capacity large enough to accommodate the logging requirements of the web server.	To ensure the logging mechanism used by the web server has sufficient storage capacity in which to write the logs, the logging mechanism must be able to allocate log record storage capacity....
V-256733	Medium	Lookup Service log files must be offloaded to a central log server in real time.	Lookup Service produces several logs that must be offloaded from the originating system. This information can then be used for diagnostic, forensics, or other purposes relevant to ensuring the...