Vulnerability Discussion
Information stored in one location is vulnerable to accidental or incidental deletion or alteration.
Off-loading is a common process in information systems with limited audit storage capacity.
Check
Verify that the SUSE operating system must off-load rsyslog messages for networked systems in real time and off-load standalone systems at least weekly.
For stand-alone hosts, verify with the System Administrator that the log files are off-loaded at least weekly.
For networked systems, check that rsyslog is sending log messages to a remote server with the following command:
# sudo grep "\*.\*" /etc/rsyslog.conf | grep "@" | grep -v "^#"
*.*;mail.none;news.none @192.168.1.101:514
If any active message labels in the file do not have a line to send log messages to a remote server, this is a finding.
Fix
Configure the SUSE operating system to off-load rsyslog messages for networked systems in real time.
For stand-alone systems establish a procedure to off-load log messages at least once a week.
For networked systems add a "@[Log_Server_IP_Address]" option to every active message label in "/etc/rsyslog.conf" that does not have one. Some examples are listed below:
*.*;mail.none;news.none -/var/log/messages
*.*;mail.none;news.none @192.168.1.101:514
An additional option is to capture all of the log messages and send them to a remote log host:
*.* @@loghost:514