vSphere UI must have the debug option turned off.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-256804	VCUI-70-000027	SV-256804r889411_rule		Medium

Description
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 trace information is enabled in a production web server, information about the web server, such as 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, may be displayed. Because this information may be placed in logs and general messages during normal operation of the web server, an attacker does not need to cause an error condition to gain this information. vSphere UI can be configured to set the debugging level. By setting the debugging level to zero, no debugging information will be provided to a malicious user.

Description

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 trace information is enabled in a production web server, information about the web server, such as 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, may be displayed. Because this information may be placed in logs and general messages during normal operation of the web server, an attacker does not need to cause an error condition to gain this information. vSphere UI can be configured to set the debugging level. By setting the debugging level to zero, no debugging information will be provided to a malicious user.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 7.0 vCenter Appliance UI Security Technical Implementation Guide	2023-06-15

Details

Check Text ( C-60479r889409_chk )
At the command prompt, run the following command: # xmllint --format /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-ui/server/conf/web.xml \| sed 's/xmlns=".*"//g' \| xmllint --xpath '//param-name[text()="debug"]/parent::init-param' - Expected result: debug 0 If the output of the command does not match the expected result, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-60422r889410_fix)
Navigate to and open: /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-ui/server/conf/web.xml Navigate to all nodes that are not set to "0". Set the to "0" in all debug nodes. Note: The debug setting should look like the following: debug 0 Restart the service with the following command: # vmon-cli --restart vsphere-ui