Vulnerability Discussion

Remote access services, such as those providing remote access to network devices and information systems, which lack automated monitoring capabilities, increase risk, and make remote user access management difficult at best.

Remote access is access to DOD nonpublic information systems by an authorized user (or an information system) communicating through an external, nonorganization-controlled network. Remote access methods include, for example, dial-up, broadband, and wireless.

Automated monitoring of remote access sessions allows organizations to detect cyber attacks and also ensure ongoing compliance with remote access policies by auditing connection activities of remote access capabilities, such as Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), on a variety of information system components (e.g., servers, workstations, notebook computers, smartphones, and tablets).

Monitoring of remote access can be used to spot attacks such as brute-force authentication attempts and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

Check

Verify that AlmaLinux OS 9 monitors all remote access methods, by running the following command:

$ grep -rsE '^(auth|authpriv|daemon)\.\*' /etc/rsyslog.conf /etc/rsyslog.d/*.conf

/etc/rsyslog.conf:authpriv.* /var/log/secure

If "auth.*", "authpriv.*" or "daemon.*" are not configured to be logged, this is a finding.

Fix

Add or update the following line to the "/etc/rsyslog.conf" file or a .conf file within /etc/rsyslog.d/:

auth.*;authpriv.*;daemon.* /var/log/secure