Vulnerability Discussion

Unapproved mechanisms that are used for authentication to the cryptographic module are not verified and therefore cannot be relied upon to provide confidentiality or integrity, and DoD data may be compromised.

RHEL 8 systems utilizing encryption are required to use FIPS-compliant mechanisms for authenticating to cryptographic modules.

Currently, Kerberos does not utilize FIPS 140-2 cryptography.

FIPS 140-2 is the current standard for validating that mechanisms used to access cryptographic modules utilize authentication that meets DoD requirements. This allows for Security Levels 1, 2, 3, or 4 for use on a general-purpose computing system.

Check

Verify the krb5-workstation package has not been installed on the system with the following commands:

If the system is a server or is utilizing krb5-workstation-1.17-18.el8.x86_64 or newer, this is Not Applicable.

$ sudo yum list installed krb5-workstation

krb5-workstation.x86_64 1.17-9.el8 repository

If the krb5-workstation package is installed and is not documented with the Information System Security Officer (ISSO) as an operational requirement, this is a finding.

Fix

Document the krb5-workstation package with the ISSO as an operational requirement or remove it from the system with the following command:

$ sudo yum remove krb5-workstation