Vulnerability Discussion
Without generating audit records that are specific to the security and mission needs of the organization, it would be difficult to establish, correlate, and investigate the events relating to an incident or identify those responsible for one.
Audit records can be generated from various components within the information system (e.g., module or policy filter).
"Setxattr" is a system call used to set an extended attribute value.
"Fsetxattr" is a system call used to set an extended attribute value. This is used to set extended attributes on a file.
"Lsetxattr" is a system call used to set an extended attribute value. This is used to set extended attributes on a symbolic link.
"Removexattr" is a system call that removes extended attributes.
"Fremovexattr" is a system call that removes extended attributes. This is used for removal of extended attributes from a file.
"Lremovexattr" is a system call that removes extended attributes. This is used for removal of extended attributes from symbolic links.
When a user logs on, the AUID is set to the UID of the account that is being authenticated. Daemons are not user sessions and have the loginuid set to "-1". The AUID representation is an unsigned 32-bit integer, which equals "4294967295". The audit system interprets "-1", "4294967295", and "unset" in the same way.
The system call rules are loaded into a matching engine that intercepts each syscall that all programs on the system makes. Therefore, it is very important to only use syscall rules when absolutely necessary since these affect performance. The more rules, the bigger the performance hit. Performance can be helped, though, by combining syscalls into one rule whenever possible.
Satisfies: SRG-OS-000037-GPOS-00015, SRG-OS-000042-GPOS-00020, SRG-OS-000062-GPOS-00031, SRG-OS-000392-GPOS-00172, SRG-OS-000458-GPOS-00203, SRG-OS-000462-GPOS-00206, SRG-OS-000463-GPOS-00207, SRG-OS-000466-GPOS-00210, SRG-OS-000468-GPOS-00212, SRG-OS-000471-GPOS-00215, SRG-OS-000474-GPOS-00219
Check
Verify if OL 8 is configured to audit the execution of the "setxattr", "fsetxattr", "lsetxattr", "removexattr", "fremovexattr", and "lremovexattr" system calls by running the following command:
$ sudo grep xattr /etc/audit/audit.rules
-a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S setxattr,fsetxattr,lsetxattr,removexattr,fremovexattr,lremovexattr -F auid>=1000 -F auid!=unset -k perm_mod
-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S setxattr,fsetxattr,lsetxattr,removexattr,fremovexattr,lremovexattr -F auid>=1000 -F auid!=unset -k perm_mod
-a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S setxattr,fsetxattr,lsetxattr,removexattr,fremovexattr,lremovexattr -F auid=0 -k perm_mod
-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S setxattr,fsetxattr,lsetxattr,removexattr,fremovexattr,lremovexattr -F auid=0 -k perm_mod
If the command does not return an audit rule for "setxattr", "fsetxattr", "lsetxattr", "removexattr", "fremovexattr", and "lremovexattr" or any of the lines returned are commented out, this is a finding.
Note: The "-k" allows for specifying an arbitrary identifier, and the string after it does not need to match the example output above.
Fix
Configure OL 8 to audit the execution of the "setxattr", "fsetxattr", "lsetxattr", "removexattr", "fremovexattr", and "lremovexattr" system calls by adding or updating the following lines to "/etc/audit/rules.d/audit.rules":
-a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S setxattr,fsetxattr,lsetxattr,removexattr,fremovexattr,lremovexattr -F auid>=1000 -F auid!=unset -k perm_mod
-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S setxattr,fsetxattr,lsetxattr,removexattr,fremovexattr,lremovexattr -F auid>=1000 -F auid!=unset -k perm_mod
-a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S setxattr,fsetxattr,lsetxattr,removexattr,fremovexattr,lremovexattr -F auid=0 -k perm_mod
-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S setxattr,fsetxattr,lsetxattr,removexattr,fremovexattr,lremovexattr -F auid=0 -k perm_mod
The audit daemon must be restarted for the changes to take effect. To restart the audit daemon, run the following command:
$ sudo service auditd restart