The vCenter ESX Agent Manager service must configure the "setCharacterEncodingFilter" filter.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-259020	VCEM-80-000127	SV-259020r961158_rule		Medium

Description
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 unanticipated application behavior, potentially leading to an application compromise. Invalid user input is one of the primary methods employed when attempting to compromise an application. An attacker can also enter Unicode characters into hosted applications in an effort to break out of the document home or root home directory or to bypass security checks. VMware uses the standard Tomcat "SetCharacterEncodingFilter" to provide a layer of defense against character encoding attacks. Filters are Java objects that perform filtering tasks on the request to a resource (a servlet or static content), on the response from a resource, or both.

Description

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 unanticipated application behavior, potentially leading to an application compromise. Invalid user input is one of the primary methods employed when attempting to compromise an application. An attacker can also enter Unicode characters into hosted applications in an effort to break out of the document home or root home directory or to bypass security checks. VMware uses the standard Tomcat "SetCharacterEncodingFilter" to provide a layer of defense against character encoding attacks. Filters are Java objects that perform filtering tasks on the request to a resource (a servlet or static content), on the response from a resource, or both.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 8.0 vCenter Appliance ESX Agent Manager (EAM) Security Technical Implementation Guide	2024-07-11

Details

Check Text ( C-62760r934716_chk )
At the command prompt, run the following command: # xmllint --xpath "//[contains(text(), 'setCharacterEncodingFilter')]/parent::" /usr/lib/vmware-eam/web/webapps/eam/WEB-INF/web.xml Expected result: setCharacterEncodingFilter /* setCharacterEncodingFilter org.apache.catalina.filters.SetCharacterEncodingFilter true encoding UTF-8 ignore true If the output is does not match the expected result, this is a finding.

Check Text ( C-62760r934716_chk )

At the command prompt, run the following command:

# xmllint --xpath "//*[contains(text(), 'setCharacterEncodingFilter')]/parent::*" /usr/lib/vmware-eam/web/webapps/eam/WEB-INF/web.xml

Expected result:

setCharacterEncodingFilter

org.apache.catalina.filters.SetCharacterEncodingFilter

true

encoding

UTF-8

ignore

true

If the output is does not match the expected result, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-62669r934717_fix)
Navigate to and open: /usr/lib/vmware-eam/web/webapps/eam/WEB-INF/web.xml Configure the node with the child nodes listed below: setCharacterEncodingFilter /* setCharacterEncodingFilter org.apache.catalina.filters.SetCharacterEncodingFilter true encoding UTF-8 ignore true Restart the service with the following command: # vmon-cli --restart eam