Vulnerability Discussion

The audit system must be configured to record enforcement actions of access restrictions, including failed program execute (-ex) attempts.

Enforcement actions are the methods or mechanisms used to prevent unauthorized access and/or changes to configuration settings. One common and effective enforcement action method is using program execution restrictions (e.g., denying users access to execute certain processes).

This configuration ensures that audit lists include events in which program execution has failed.

Without auditing the enforcement of program execution, it is difficult to identify attempted attacks, as there is no audit trail available for forensic investigation.

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000463-GPOS-00207,SRG-OS-000365-GPOS-00152,SRG-OS-000458-GPOS-00203,SRG-OS-000465-GPOS-00209

Check

Verify the macOS system is configured to audit all failed program execution on the system with the following command:

/usr/bin/awk -F':' '/^flags/ { print $NF }' /etc/security/audit_control | /usr/bin/tr ',' '\n' | /usr/bin/grep -Ec '\-ex'

If the result is not "1", this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the macOS system to audit all failed program execution on the system with the following command:

/usr/bin/grep -qE "^flags.*-ex" /etc/security/audit_control || /usr/bin/sed -i.bak '/^flags/ s/$/,-ex/' /etc/security/audit_control; /usr/sbin/audit -s