vSphere UI must be configured to show error pages with minimal information.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-256802	VCUI-70-000025	SV-256802r889405_rule		Medium

Description
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 type, version, patches installed, plug-ins and modules installed, type of code being used by the hosted application, and any backends being used for data storage. This information could be used by an attacker to blueprint what type of attacks might be successful. Therefore, vSphere UI must be configured to not show server version information in error pages.

Description

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 type, version, patches installed, plug-ins and modules installed, type of code being used by the hosted application, and any backends being used for data storage. This information could be used by an attacker to blueprint what type of attacks might be successful. Therefore, vSphere UI must be configured to not show server version information in error pages.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 7.0 vCenter Appliance UI Security Technical Implementation Guide	2023-02-21

Details

Check Text ( C-60477r889403_chk )
At the command prompt, run the following command: # xmllint --format /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-ui/server/conf/server.xml \| xmllint --xpath '/Server/Service/Engine/Host/Valve[@className="org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve"]' - Expected result: If the output of the command does not match the expected result, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-60420r889404_fix)
Navigate to and open: /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-ui/server/conf/server.xml Locate the following Host block: ... Inside this block, remove any existing Valve with className="org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve" and add the following: Restart the service with the following command: # vmon-cli --restart vsphere-ui