VMware vSphere 8.0 vCenter Security Technical Implementation Guide
Rules, Groups, and Values defined within the XCCDF Benchmark
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SRG-APP-000065
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The vCenter Server must enforce the limit of three consecutive invalid login attempts by a user.
By limiting the number of failed login attempts, the risk of unauthorized system access via user password guessing, otherwise known as brute forcing, is reduced. Limits are imposed by locking the a...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000068
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SRG-APP-000095
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The vCenter Server 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.Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000141
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SRG-APP-000148
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SRG-APP-000080
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The vCenter Server must require multifactor authentication.
Without the use of multifactor authentication, the ease of access to privileged functions is greatly increased. Multifactor authentication requires using two or more factors to achieve authentica...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000164
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The vCenter Server passwords must be at least 15 characters in length.
The shorter the password, the lower the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised. Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectivene...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000165
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SRG-APP-000166
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SRG-APP-000167
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The vCenter Server passwords must contain at least one lowercase character.
Use of a complex password helps to increase the time and resources required to compromise the password. Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resistin...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000168
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SRG-APP-000169
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SRG-APP-000172
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The vCenter Server must enable FIPS-validated cryptography.
FIPS 140-2 is the current standard for validating that mechanisms used to access cryptographic modules use authentication that meets DOD requirements. In vSphere 6.7 and later, ESXi and vCenter Se...Rule High Severity -
SRG-APP-000174
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The vCenter Server must enforce a 90-day maximum password lifetime restriction.
Any password, no matter how complex, can eventually be cracked. Therefore, passwords must be changed at specific intervals. One method of minimizing this risk is to use complex passwords and perio...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000175
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SRG-APP-000190
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The vCenter Server must terminate vSphere Client sessions after 15 minutes of inactivity.
Terminating an idle session within a short time period reduces the window of opportunity for unauthorized personnel to take control of a management session enabled on the console or console port th...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000211
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The vCenter Server user roles must be verified.
Users and service accounts must only be assigned privileges they require. Least privilege requires that these privileges must only be assigned if needed to reduce risk of confidentiality, availabil...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000247
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The vCenter Server must manage excess capacity, bandwidth, or other redundancy to limit the effects of information flooding types of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks by enabling Network I/O Control (NIOC).
DoS is a condition when a resource is not available for legitimate users. When this occurs, the organization either cannot accomplish its mission or must operate at degraded capacity. Managing exc...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000291
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The vCenter Server must provide an immediate real-time alert to the system administrator (SA) and information system security officer (ISSO), at a minimum, on every Single Sign-On (SSO) account action.
Once an attacker establishes initial access to a system, they often attempt to create a persistent method of reestablishing access. One way to accomplish this is for the attacker to create a new ac...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000345
Group -
The vCenter Server must set the interval for counting failed login attempts to at least 15 minutes.
By limiting the number of failed login attempts, the risk of unauthorized system access via user password guessing, otherwise known as brute forcing, is reduced. Limits are imposed by locking the a...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000358
Group -
The vCenter Server must be configured to send logs to a central log server.
vCenter must be configured to send near real-time log data to syslog collectors so information will be available to investigators in the case of a security incident or to assist in troubleshooting.Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000360
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The vCenter server must provide an immediate real-time alert to the system administrator (SA) and information system security officer (ISSO), at a minimum, of all audit failure events requiring real-time alerts.
It is critical for the appropriate personnel to be aware if a system is at risk of failing to process audit logs as required. Without a real-time alert, security personnel may be unaware of an impe...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000371
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The vCenter Server must compare internal information system clocks at least every 24 hours with an authoritative time server.
Inaccurate time stamps make it more difficult to correlate events and can lead to an inaccurate analysis. Determining the correct time a particular event occurred on a system is critical when condu...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000427
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SRG-APP-000428
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SRG-APP-000516
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The vCenter Server must disable the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP).
The VMware CEIP sends VMware anonymized system information that is used to improve the quality, reliability, and functionality of VMware products and services. For confidentiality purposes, this fe...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000575
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SRG-APP-000575
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The vCenter server must disable SNMPv1/2 receivers.
SNMPv3 supports commercial-grade security, including authentication, authorization, access control, and privacy. Previous versions of the protocol contained well-known security weaknesses that were...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000345
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The vCenter Server must require an administrator to unlock an account locked due to excessive login failures.
By requiring that Single Sign-On (SSO) accounts be unlocked manually, the risk of unauthorized access via user password guessing, otherwise known as brute forcing, is reduced. When the account unlo...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000516
Group -
The vCenter Server must disable the distributed virtual switch health check.
Network health check is disabled by default. Once enabled, the health check packets contain information on host#, vds#, and port#, which an attacker would find useful. It is recommended that networ...Rule Medium Severity -
SRG-APP-000516
Group
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