Vulnerability Discussion
Maintaining an audit trail of system activity logs can help identify configuration errors, troubleshoot service disruptions, and analyze compromises that have occurred, as well as detect attacks. Audit logs are necessary to provide a trail of evidence in case the system or network is compromised. The Application event log may be susceptible to tampering if proper permissions are not applied.
Satisfies: SRG-OS-000057-GPOS-00027, SRG-OS-000058-GPOS-00028, SRG-OS-000059-GPOS-00029
Check
Navigate to the Application event log file.
The default location is the "%SystemRoot%\System32\winevt\Logs" folder. However, the logs may have been moved to another folder.
If the permissions for the "Application.evtx" file are not as restrictive as the default permissions listed below, this is a finding.
Eventlog - Full Control
SYSTEM - Full Control
Administrators - Full Control
Fix
Configure the permissions on the Application event log file (Application.evtx) to prevent access by non-privileged accounts. The default permissions listed below satisfy this requirement:
Eventlog - Full Control
SYSTEM - Full Control
Administrators - Full Control
The default location is the "%SystemRoot%\ System32\winevt\Logs" folder.
If the location of the logs has been changed, when adding Eventlog to the permissions, it must be entered as "NT Service\Eventlog".