VMware vSphere 8.0 ESXi Security Technical Implementation Guide
Rules, Groups, and Values defined within the XCCDF Benchmark
-
SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000
Group -
SRG-OS-000342-VMM-001230
Group -
The ESXi host must off-load audit records via syslog.
ESXi offers both local and remote audit recordkeeping to meet the requirements of the NIAP Virtualization Protection Profile and Server Virtualization Extended Package. Local records are stored on ...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000
Group -
The ESXi host must enable strict x509 verification for SSL syslog endpoints.
When sending syslog data to a remote host via SSL, the ESXi host is presented with the endpoint's SSL server certificate. In addition to trust verification, configured elsewhere, this "x509-strict"...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-OS-000037-VMM-000150
Group -
The ESXi host must forward audit records containing information to establish what type of events occurred.
Without establishing what types of events occurred, it would be difficult to establish, correlate, and investigate the events leading up to an outage or attack. Audit record content that may be n...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000
Group -
The ESXi host must not be configured to override virtual machine (VM) configurations.
Each VM on an ESXi host runs in its own "vmx" process. Upon creation, a vmx process will look in two locations for configuration items, the ESXi host itself and the per-vm *.vmx file in the VM stor...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000
Group -
SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000
Group -
The ESXi host must require TPM-based configuration encryption.
An ESXi host's configuration consists of configuration files for each service that runs on the host. The configuration files typically reside in the /etc/ directory, but they can also reside in oth...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000
Group -
The ESXi host must configure the firewall to restrict access to services running on the host.
Unrestricted access to services running on an ESXi host can expose a host to outside attacks and unauthorized access. Reduce the risk by configuring the ESXi firewall to only allow access from auth...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000
Group -
The ESXi host when using Host Profiles and/or Auto Deploy must use the vSphere Authentication Proxy to protect passwords when adding themselves to Active Directory.
If a host is configured to join an Active Directory domain using Host Profiles and/or Auto Deploy, the Active Directory credentials are saved in the profile and are transmitted over the network. T...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000
Group -
The ESXi host must not use the default Active Directory ESX Admin group.
When adding ESXi hosts to Active Directory, all user/group accounts assigned to the Active Directory group "ESX Admins" will have full administrative access to the host. If this group is not contr...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-OS-000341-VMM-001220
Group -
SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000
Group -
The ESXi host must enforce the exclusive running of executables from approved VIBs.
The "execInstalledOnly" advanced ESXi boot option, when set to TRUE, guarantees that the VMkernel executes only those binaries that have been packaged as part of a signed VIB. While this option is ...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000
Group -
SRG-OS-000480-VMM-002000
Group -
The ESXi host must not enable log filtering.
The log filtering capability allows users to modify the logging policy of the syslog service that is running on an ESXi host. Users can create log filters to reduce the number of repetitive entries...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must enforce the limit of three consecutive invalid logon attempts by a user.
By limiting the number of failed logon attempts, the risk of unauthorized access via user password guessing, otherwise known as brute forcing, is reduced. Once the configured number of attempts is ...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must display the Standard Mandatory DOD Notice and Consent Banner before granting access to the system via the Direct Console User Interface (DCUI).
Display of a standardized and approved use notification before granting access to the host ensures privacy and security notification verbiage used is consistent with applicable federal laws, Execut...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi must produce audit records containing information to establish what type of events occurred.
Without establishing what types of events occurred, it would be difficult to establish, correlate, and investigate the events leading up to an outage or attack. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000037-VMM-00015...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must enforce password complexity by configuring a password quality policy.
To enforce the use of complex passwords, minimum numbers of characters of different classes are mandated. The use of complex passwords reduces the ability of attackers to successfully obtain valid...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must set a timeout to automatically end idle shell sessions after fifteen minutes.
If a user forgets to log out of their local or remote ESXi Shell session, the idle connection will remain open indefinitely and increase the likelihood of inappropriate host access via session hija...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must allocate audit record storage capacity to store at least one week's worth of audit records.
In order to ensure ESXi has sufficient storage capacity in which to write the audit logs, audit record storage capacity should be configured. If a central audit record storage facility is availab...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must off-load logs via syslog.
Remote logging to a central log host provides a secure, centralized store for ESXi logs. By gathering host log files onto a central host, it can more easily monitor all hosts with a single tool. It...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi Image Profile and vSphere Installation Bundle (VIB) acceptance level must be verified.
Verify the ESXi Image Profile to only allow signed VIBs. An unsigned VIB represents untested code installed on an ESXi host. The ESXi Image profile supports four acceptance levels: 1. VMwareCertif...Rule High Severity -
The ESXi host must maintain the confidentiality and integrity of information during transmission by exclusively enabling Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2.
TLS 1.0 and 1.1 are deprecated protocols with well-published shortcomings and vulnerabilities. TLS 1.2 should be enabled on all interfaces and SSLv3, TL 1.1, and 1.0 disabled, where supported. Man...Rule High Severity -
The ESXi host must display the Standard Mandatory DOD Notice and Consent Banner before granting access to the system via Secure Shell (SSH).
Display of a standardized and approved use notification before granting access to the host ensures privacy and security notification verbiage used is consistent with applicable federal laws, Execut...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must be configured to disable nonessential capabilities by disabling Secure Shell (SSH).
The ESXi Shell is an interactive command line interface (CLI) available at the ESXi server console. The ESXi shell provides temporary access to commands essential for server maintenance. Intended p...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must protect the confidentiality and integrity of transmitted information by isolating IP-based storage traffic.
Virtual machines (VMs) might share virtual switches and VLANs with the IP-based storage configurations. IP-based storage includes vSAN, iSCSI, and NFS. This configuration might expose IP-based stor...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must disable Inter-Virtual Machine (VM) Transparent Page Sharing.
Published academic papers have demonstrated that by forcing a flush and reload of cache memory, it is possible to measure memory timings to try to determine an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) en...Rule Low Severity -
The ESXi host must enable Bridge Protocol Data Units (BPDU) filter on the host to prevent being locked out of physical switch ports with Portfast and BPDU Guard enabled.
BPDU Guard and Portfast are commonly enabled on the physical switch to which the ESXi host is directly connected to reduce the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) convergence delay. If a BPDU packet is s...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must restrict the use of Virtual Guest Tagging (VGT) on standard switches.
When a port group is set to VLAN 4095, the vSwitch passes all network frames to the attached virtual machines (VMs) without modifying the VLAN tags. In vSphere, this is referred to as VGT. The VM m...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must configure a session timeout for the vSphere API.
The vSphere API (VIM) allows for remote, programmatic administration of the ESXi host. Authenticated API sessions are no different from a risk perspective than authenticated UI sessions and they ne...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi Common Information Model (CIM) service must be disabled.
The CIM system provides an interface that enables hardware-level management from remote applications via a set of standard application programming interfaces (APIs). These APIs are consumed by exte...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host OpenSLP service must be disabled.
OpenSLP implements the Service Location Protocol to help CIM clients discover CIM servers over TCP 427. This service is not widely needed and has had vulnerabilities exposed in the past. To reduce ...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must enable audit logging.
ESXi offers both local and remote audit recordkeeping to meet the requirements of the NIAP Virtualization Protection Profile and Server Virtualization Extended Package. Local records are stored on ...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must not be configured to override virtual machine (VM) logger settings.
Each VM on an ESXi host runs in its own "vmx" process. Upon creation, a vmx process will look in two locations for configuration items, the ESXi host itself and the per-vm *.vmx file in the VM stor...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must configure a persistent log location for all locally stored logs.
ESXi can be configured to store log files on an in-memory file system. This occurs when the host's "/scratch" directory is linked to "/tmp/scratch". When this is done, only a single day's worth of ...Rule Medium Severity -
The ESXi host must use sufficient entropy for cryptographic operations.
Starting in vSphere 8.0, the ESXi Entropy implementation supports the FIPS 140-3 and EAL4 certifications. Kernel boot options control which entropy sources to activate on an ESXi host. In computin...Rule Medium Severity
Node 2
The content of the drawer really is up to you. It could have form fields, definition lists, text lists, labels, charts, progress bars, etc. Spacing recommendation is 24px margins. You can put tabs in here, and can also make the drawer scrollable.