| Finding ID |
Severity |
Title |
Description |
|
V-258727
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must disable DirectPath I/O devices when not required. |
VMDirectPath I/O (PCI passthrough) enables direct assignment of hardware PCI functions to VMs. This gives the VM access to the PCI functions with minimal intervention from the ESXi host. This is a powerful feature for legitimate applications such as virtualized storage appliances, backup appliances, dedicated graphics, etc., but it also... |
|
V-258726
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must remove unneeded USB devices. |
Ensure no device is connected to a virtual machine if it is not required. For example, floppy, serial, and parallel ports are rarely used for virtual machines in a data center environment, and CD/DVD drives are usually connected only temporarily during software installation. |
|
V-258725
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must remove unneeded serial devices. |
Ensure no device is connected to a virtual machine if it is not required. For example, floppy, serial, and parallel ports are rarely used for virtual machines in a data center environment, and CD/DVD drives are usually connected only temporarily during software installation. |
|
V-258724
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must remove unneeded parallel devices. |
Ensure no device is connected to a virtual machine if it is not required. For example, floppy, serial, and parallel ports are rarely used for virtual machines in a data center environment, and CD/DVD drives are usually connected only temporarily during software installation. |
|
V-258722
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must remove unneeded floppy devices. |
Ensure no device is connected to a virtual machine if it is not required. For example, floppy, serial, and parallel ports are rarely used for virtual machines in a data center environment, and CD/DVD drives are usually connected only temporarily during software installation. |
|
V-258721
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must not use independent, nonpersistent disks. |
The security issue with nonpersistent disk mode is that successful attackers, with a simple shutdown or reboot, might undo or remove any traces they were ever on the machine. To safeguard against this risk, production virtual machines should be set to use persistent disk mode; additionally, ensure activity within the... |
|
V-258720
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must enable logging. |
The ESXi hypervisor maintains logs for each individual VM by default. These logs contain information including, but not limited to, power events, system failure information, tools status and activity, time sync, virtual hardware changes, vMotion migrations and machine clones. Due to the value these logs provide for the continued availability... |
|
V-258719
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must configure log retention. |
The ESXi hypervisor maintains logs for each individual VM by default. These logs contain information including but not limited to power events, system failure information, tools status and activity, time sync, virtual hardware changes, vMotion migrations, and machine clones.
By default, 10 of these logs are retained. This is normally... |
|
V-258718
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must configure log size. |
The ESXi hypervisor maintains logs for each individual VM by default. These logs contain information including but not limited to power events, system failure information, tools status and activity, time sync, virtual hardware changes, vMotion migrations, and machine clones.
By default, the size of these logs is unlimited, and they... |
|
V-258717
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must enable encryption for Fault Tolerance. |
Fault Tolerance log traffic can be encrypted. This could contain sensitive data from the protected machine's memory or CPU instructions.
vSphere Fault Tolerance performs frequent checks between a primary VM and secondary VM so the secondary VM can quickly resume from the last successful checkpoint. The checkpoint contains the VM... |
|
V-258716
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must enable encryption for vMotion. |
vMotion migrations in vSphere 6.0 and earlier transferred working memory and CPU state information in clear text over the vMotion network. As of vSphere 6.5, this transfer can be transparently encrypted using 256-bit AES-GCM with negligible performance impact.
vSphere enables encrypted vMotion by default as "Opportunistic", meaning that encrypted channels... |
|
V-258714
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must be configured to lock when the last console connection is closed. |
When accessing the VM console, the guest operating system must be locked when the last console user disconnects, limiting the possibility of session hijacking. This setting only applies to Windows-based VMs with VMware tools installed. |
|
V-258711
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must not be able to obtain host information from the hypervisor. |
If enabled, a VM can obtain detailed information about the physical host. The default value for the parameter is FALSE. This setting should not be TRUE unless a particular VM requires this information for performance monitoring. An adversary could use this information to inform further attacks on the host. |
|
V-258710
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must prevent unauthorized removal, connection, and modification of devices. |
In a virtual machine, users and processes without root or administrator privileges can connect or disconnect devices, such as network adaptors and CD-ROM drives, and can modify device settings. Use the virtual machine settings editor or configuration editor to remove unneeded or unused hardware devices. To use the device again,... |
|
V-258708
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must limit console sharing. |
By default, more than one user at a time can connect to remote console sessions. When multiple sessions are activated, each terminal window receives a notification about the new session. If an administrator in the VM logs in using a VMware remote console during their session, a nonadministrator in the... |
|
V-258707
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must have virtual disk wiping disabled. |
Shrinking and wiping (erasing) a virtual disk reclaims unused space in it. If there is empty space in the disk, this process reduces the amount of space the virtual disk occupies on the host drive. Normal users and processes (those without root or administrator privileges) within virtual machines have the... |
|
V-258706
|
Medium |
Virtual machines (VMs) must have virtual disk shrinking disabled. |
Shrinking a virtual disk reclaims unused space in it. If there is empty space in the disk, this process reduces the amount of space the virtual disk occupies on the host drive. Normal users and processes (those without root or administrator privileges) within virtual machines have the capability to invoke... |
|
V-258723
|
Low |
Virtual machines (VMs) must remove unneeded CD/DVD devices. |
Ensure no device is connected to a virtual machine if it is not required. For example, floppy, serial, and parallel ports are rarely used for virtual machines in a data center environment, and CD/DVD drives are usually connected only temporarily during software installation. |
|
V-258715
|
Low |
Virtual machines (VMs) must disable 3D features when not required. |
For performance reasons, it is recommended that 3D acceleration be disabled on virtual machines that do not require 3D functionality (e.g., most server workloads or desktops not using 3D applications). |
|
V-258713
|
Low |
Virtual machines (VMs) must disable access through the "dvfilter" network Application Programming Interface (API). |
An attacker might compromise a VM by using the "dvFilter" API. Configure only VMs that need this access to use the API. |
|
V-258712
|
Low |
Virtual machines (VMs) must have shared salt values disabled. |
When salting is enabled (Mem.ShareForceSalting=1 or 2) to share a page between two virtual machines, both salt and the content of the page must be same. A salt value is a configurable advanced option for each virtual machine. The salt values can be specified manually in the virtual machine's advanced... |
|
V-258709
|
Low |
Virtual machines (VMs) must limit informational messages from the virtual machine to the VMX file. |
The configuration file containing these name-value pairs is limited to a size of 1MB. If not limited, VMware tools in the guest operating system are capable of sending a large and continuous data stream to the host. This 1MB capacity should be sufficient for most cases, but this value can... |
|
V-258705
|
Low |
Virtual machines (VMs) must have paste operations disabled. |
Copy and paste operations are disabled by default; however, explicitly disabling this feature will enable audit controls to verify this setting is correct. Copy, paste, drag and drop, or GUI copy/paste operations between the guest operating system and the remote console could provide the means for an attacker to compromise... |
|
V-258704
|
Low |
Virtual machines (VMs) must have drag and drop operations disabled. |
Copy and paste operations are disabled by default; however, explicitly disabling this feature will enable audit controls to verify this setting is correct. Copy, paste, drag and drop, or GUI copy/paste operations between the guest operating system and the remote console could provide the means for an attacker to compromise... |
|
V-258703
|
Low |
Virtual machines (VMs) must have copy operations disabled. |
Copy and paste operations are disabled by default; however, explicitly disabling this feature will enable audit controls to verify this setting is correct. Copy, paste, drag and drop, or GUI copy/paste operations between the guest operating system and the remote console could provide the means for an attacker to compromise... |
