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Guide to the Secure Configuration of Ubuntu 16.04

Rules, Groups, and Values defined within the XCCDF Benchmark

  • Ensure Rsyslog Encrypts Off-Loaded Audit Records

    Rsyslogd is a system utility providing support for message logging. Support for both internet and UNIX domain sockets enables this utility to support both local and remote logging. Couple this uti...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Ensure Log Files Are Owned By Appropriate Group

    The group-owner of all log files written by <code>rsyslog</code> should be <code>adm</code>. These log files are determined by the second part of each Rule line in <code>/etc/rsyslog.conf</code> an...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Ensure All Logs are Rotated by logrotate

    Edit the file <code>/etc/logrotate.d/rsyslog</code>. Find the first line, which should look like this (wrapped for clarity): <pre>/var/log/messages /var/log/secure /var/log/maillog /var/log/spool...
    Group
  • Verify Group Who Owns shadow File

    To properly set the group owner of /etc/shadow, run the command:
    $ sudo chgrp shadow /etc/shadow
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Ensure Logs Sent To Remote Host

    To configure rsyslog to send logs to a remote log server, open <code>/etc/rsyslog.conf</code> and read and understand the last section of the file, which describes the multiple directives necessary...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Strengthen the Default Ruleset

    The default rules can be strengthened. The system scripts that activate the firewall rules expect them to be defined in the configuration files <code>iptables</code> and <code>ip6tables</code> in t...
    Group
  • Disable Accepting Packets Routed Between Local Interfaces

    To set the runtime status of the <code>net.ipv4.conf.all.accept_local</code> kernel parameter, run the following command: <pre>$ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.accept_local=0</pre> To make sure t...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Configure ARP filtering for All IPv4 Interfaces

    To set the runtime status of the <code>net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_filter</code> kernel parameter, run the following command: <pre>$ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_filter=<xccdf-1.2:sub idref="xccd...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Disable RDS Support

    The Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS) protocol is a transport layer protocol designed to provide reliable high-bandwidth, low-latency communications between nodes in a cluster. To configure the syst...
    Rule Low Severity
  • File Permissions and Masks

    Traditional Unix security relies heavily on file and directory permissions to prevent unauthorized users from reading or modifying files to which they should not have access. <br> <br> Severa...
    Group
  • Verify that All World-Writable Directories Have Sticky Bits Set

    When the so-called 'sticky bit' is set on a directory, only the owner of a given file may remove that file from the directory. Without the sticky bit, any user with write access to a directory may ...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Verify that Shared Library Directories Have Restrictive Permissions

    System-wide shared library directories, which contain are linked to executables during process load time or run time, are stored in the following directories by default: <pre>/lib /lib64 /usr/lib /...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Kernel panic on oops

    To set the runtime status of the <code>kernel.panic_on_oops</code> kernel parameter, run the following command: <pre>$ sudo sysctl -w kernel.panic_on_oops=1</pre> To make sure that the setting is p...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Disable Core Dumps

    A core dump file is the memory image of an executable program when it was terminated by the operating system due to errant behavior. In most cases, only software developers legitimately need to acc...
    Group
  • Restrict Exposed Kernel Pointer Addresses Access

    To set the runtime status of the <code>kernel.kptr_restrict</code> kernel parameter, run the following command: <pre>$ sudo sysctl -w kernel.kptr_restrict=<xccdf-1.2:sub idref="xccdf_org.ssgproject...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Ensure SELinux State is Enforcing

    The SELinux state should be set to <code><xccdf-1.2:sub idref="xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_value_var_selinux_state" use="legacy"></xccdf-1.2:sub></code> at system boot time. In the file <code>/et...
    Rule High Severity
  • Services

    The best protection against vulnerable software is running less software. This section describes how to review the software which Ubuntu 16.04 installs on a system and disable software which is not...
    Group
  • Disable Avahi Publishing

    To prevent Avahi from publishing its records, edit <code>/etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf</code> and ensure the following line appears in the <code>[publish]</code> section: <pre>disable-publishing=yes...
    Rule Low Severity
  • DHCP

    The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) allows systems to request and obtain an IP address and other configuration parameters from a server. <br> <br> This guide recommends configuring...
    Group
  • Minimize the DHCP-Configured Options

    Create the file <code>/etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf</code>, and add an appropriate setting for each of the ten configuration settings which can be obtained via DHCP. For each setting, do one of the follo...
    Rule Unknown Severity

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