RHEL 9 must generate audit records for all account creations, modifications, disabling, and termination events that affect /etc/sudoers.

STIG ID: RHEL-09-654215  |  SRG: SRG-OS-000004-GPOS-00004 |  Severity: medium |  CCI: CCI-000018,CCI-000130,CCI-000135,CCI-000169,CCI-000172,CCI-001403,CCI-001404,CCI-001405,CCI-002130,CCI-000015,CCI-002884,CCI-002132 |  Vulnerability Id: V-258217

Vulnerability Discussion

The actions taken by system administrators must be audited to keep a record of what was executed on the system, as well as for accountability purposes. Editing the sudoers file may be sign of an attacker trying to establish persistent methods to a system, auditing the editing of the sudoers files mitigates this risk.

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000004-GPOS-00004, SRG-OS-000037-GPOS-00015, SRG-OS-000042-GPOS-00020, SRG-OS-000062-GPOS-00031, SRG-OS-000304-GPOS-00121, SRG-OS-000392-GPOS-00172, SRG-OS-000462-GPOS-00206, SRG-OS-000470-GPOS-00214, SRG-OS-000471-GPOS-00215, SRG-OS-000239-GPOS-00089, SRG-OS-000240-GPOS-00090, SRG-OS-000241-GPOS-00091, SRG-OS-000303-GPOS-00120, SRG-OS-000466-GPOS-00210, SRG-OS-000476-GPOS-00221

Check

Verify RHEL 9 generates audit records for all account creations, modifications, disabling, and termination events that affect "/etc/sudoers" with the following command:

$ sudo auditctl -l | grep /etc/sudoers

-w /etc/sudoers -p wa -k identity

If the command does not return a line, or the line is commented out, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure RHEL 9 to generate audit records for all account creations, modifications, disabling, and termination events that affect "/etc/sudoers".

Add or update the following file system rule to "/etc/audit/rules.d/audit.rules":

-w /etc/sudoers -p wa -k identity

The audit daemon must be restarted for the changes to take effect.

$ sudo service auditd restart
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