VMware vSphere 7.0 vCenter Appliance UI Security Technical Implementation Guide

Overview

Version	Date	Finding Count (33)			Downloads
1	2023-06-15 2023-02-21	CAT I (High): 0	CAT II (Med): 33	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-256810	Medium	The vSphere UI default servlet must be set to "readonly".	The default servlet (or DefaultServlet) is a special servlet provided with Tomcat that is called when no other suitable page is found in a particular folder. The DefaultServlet serves static...
V-256785	Medium	vSphere UI application files must be verified for their integrity.	Verifying the vSphere UI application code is unchanged from its shipping state is essential for file validation and nonrepudiation of the vSphere UI. There is no reason the MD5 hash of the RPM...
V-256784	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256787	Medium	vSphere UI must not be configured with the "UserDatabaseRealm" enabled.	The vSphere UI performs user authentication at the application level and not through Tomcat. By default, there is no configuration for the "UserDatabaseRealm" Tomcat authentication mechanism. To...
V-256786	Medium	vSphere UI plugins must be authorized before use.	The vSphere UI ships with a number of plugins out of the box. Any additional plugins may affect the availability and integrity of the system and must be approved and documented by the information...
V-256781	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256780	Medium	vSphere UI must limit the maximum size of a POST request.	The "maxPostSize" value is the maximum size in bytes of the POST which will be handled by the container FORM URL parameter parsing. Limit its size to reduce exposure to a denial-of-service attack....
V-256783	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256782	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256789	Medium	vSphere UI must have Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) that invoke operating system shell programs disabled.	MIME mappings tell the vSphere UI 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 various shell...
V-256788	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256808	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256809	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256802	Medium	vSphere UI must be configured to show error pages with minimal information.	Web servers will often display error messages to client users with enough information to aid in the debugging of the error. The information given back in error messages may display the web server...
V-256803	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256800	Medium	The vSphere UI 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-256801	Medium	vSphere UI must be configured to hide the server version.	Web servers will often display error messages to client users with enough information to aid in the debugging of the error. The information given back in error messages may display the web server...
V-256806	Medium	vSphere UI log files must be moved to a permanent repository in accordance with site policy.	vSphere UI 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...
V-256807	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256804	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256805	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256792	Medium	vSphere UI 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, vSphere UI can continue to consume system resources, which will lead to...
V-256793	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256790	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256791	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256796	Medium	vSphere UI 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 Security Token...
V-256797	Medium	vSphere UI 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 can run out of system resources and...
V-256794	Medium	The vSphere UI 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-256795	Medium	vSphere UI must restrict its cookie path.	Cookies are used to exchange data between the web server and the client. Cookies, such as a session cookie, may contain session information and user credentials used to maintain a persistent...
V-256798	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256799	Medium	vSphere UI 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-256778	Medium	vSphere UI must limit the amount of time that each Transmission 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-256779	Medium	vSphere UI 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...