Ubuntu 22.04 LTS must permit only authorized groups to own the audit configuration files.

STIG ID: UBTU-22-653075  |  SRG: SRG-OS-000063-GPOS-00032 |  Severity: medium |  CCI: CCI-000171 |  Vulnerability Id: V-260603 | 

Vulnerability Discussion

Without the capability to restrict which roles and individuals can select which events are audited, unauthorized personnel may be able to prevent the auditing of critical events.

Misconfigured audits may degrade the system's performance by overwhelming the audit log. Misconfigured audits may also make it more difficult to establish, correlate, and investigate the events relating to an incident or identify those responsible for one.

Check

Verify that "/etc/audit/audit.rules", "/etc/audit/auditd.conf", and "/etc/audit/rules.d/*" files are owned by root group by using the following command:

$ sudo ls -al /etc/audit/audit.rules /etc/audit/auditd.conf /etc/audit/rules.d/* | awk '{print $4, $9}'
root /etc/audit/audit.rules
root /etc/audit/auditd.conf
root /etc/audit/rules.d/audit.rules

If "/etc/audit/audit.rules", "/etc/audit/auditd.conf", or "/etc/audit/rules.d/*" files are owned by a group other than "root", this is a finding.

Fix

Configure "/etc/audit/audit.rules", "/etc/audit/rules.d/*", and "/etc/audit/auditd.conf" files to be owned by root group by using the following command:

$ sudo chown -R :root /etc/audit/audit.rules /etc/audit/auditd.conf /etc/audit/rules.d/*