Guide to the Secure Configuration of Ubuntu 20.04
Rules, Groups, and Values defined within the XCCDF Benchmark
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Ensure There Are No Accounts With Blank or Null Passwords
Check the "/etc/shadow" file for blank passwords with the following command: <pre>$ sudo awk -F: '!$2 {print $1}' /etc/shadow</pre> If the command returns any results, this is a finding. Configure ...Rule High Severity -
Disable Recovery Booting
Ubuntu 20.04 systems support an "recovery boot" option that can be used to prevent services from being started. The <code>GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY</code> configuration option in <code>/etc/default/gru...Rule Medium Severity -
Enable rsyslog to Accept Messages via UDP, if Acting As Log Server
The <code>rsyslog</code> daemon should not accept remote messages unless the system acts as a log server. If the system needs to act as a central log server, add the following lines to <code>/etc/r...Rule Unknown Severity -
Direct root Logins Not Allowed
To further limit access to the <code>root</code> account, administrators can disable root logins at the console by editing the <code>/etc/securetty</code> file. This file lists all devices the root...Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure that System Accounts Are Locked
Some accounts are not associated with a human user of the system, and exist to perform some administrative functions. An attacker should not be able to log into these accounts. <br> <br> S...Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure that System Accounts Do Not Run a Shell Upon Login
Some accounts are not associated with a human user of the system, and exist to perform some administrative functions. Should an attacker be able to log into these accounts, they should not be grant...Rule Medium Severity -
Limit the Number of Concurrent Login Sessions Allowed Per User
Limiting the number of allowed users and sessions per user can limit risks related to Denial of Service attacks. This addresses concurrent sessions for a single account and does not address concurr...Rule Low Severity -
Ensure that User Home Directories are not Group-Writable or World-Readable
For each human user of the system, view the permissions of the user's home directory: <pre># ls -ld /home/<i>USER</i> </pre> Ensure that the directory is not group-writable and that it is n...Rule Medium Severity -
AppArmor
Many security vulnerabilities result from bugs in trusted programs. A trusted program runs with privileges that attackers want to possess. The program fails to keep that trust if there is a bug in ...Group -
Ensure AppArmor is Active and Configured
Verify that the Apparmor tool is configured to control whitelisted applications and user home directory access control.<br> <br> The <code>apparmor</code> service can be enabled with the fo...Rule Medium Severity -
Configure L1 Terminal Fault mitigations
L1 Terminal Fault (L1TF) is a hardware vulnerability which allows unprivileged speculative access to data which is available in the Level 1 Data Cache when the page table entry isn't present. Sele...Rule High Severity -
Disable merging of slabs with similar size
The kernel may merge similar slabs together to reduce overhead and increase cache hotness of objects. Disabling merging of slabs keeps the slabs separate and reduces the risk of kernel heap overflo...Rule Medium Severity -
Configure Speculative Store Bypass Mitigation
Certain CPUs are vulnerable to an exploit against a common wide industry wide performance optimization known as Speculative Store Bypass (SSB). In such cases, recent stores to the same memory loca...Rule Medium Severity -
Set the UEFI Boot Loader Password
The grub2 boot loader should have a superuser account and password protection enabled to protect boot-time settings. <br> <br> Since plaintext passwords are a security risk, generate a hash...Rule High Severity -
Configure Low Address Space To Protect From User Allocation
This is the portion of low virtual memory which should be protected from userspace allocation. This configuration is available from kernel 3.14, but may be available if backported by distros. The ...Rule Medium Severity -
Configure Syslog
The syslog service has been the default Unix logging mechanism for many years. It has a number of downsides, including inconsistent log format, lack of authentication for received messages, and lac...Group -
Ensure Proper Configuration of Log Files
The file <code>/etc/rsyslog.conf</code> controls where log message are written. These are controlled by lines called <i>rules</i>, which consist of a <i>selector</i> and an <i>action</i>. These rul...Group -
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 System Log Files Have Correct Permissions
The file permissions for all log files written by <code>rsyslog</code> should be set to 640, or more restrictive. These log files are determined by the second part of each Rule line in <code>/etc/r...Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure remote access methods are monitored in Rsyslog
Logging of remote access methods must be implemented to help identify cyber attacks and ensure ongoing compliance with remote access policies are being audited and upheld. An examples of a remote a...Rule Medium Severity -
Enable systemd-journald Service
The <code>systemd-journald</code> service is an essential component of systemd. The <code>systemd-journald</code> service can be enabled with the following command: <pre>$ sudo systemctl enable sy...Rule Medium Severity -
Ensure All Logs are Rotated by logrotate
Edit the file <code>/etc/logrotate.d/syslog</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/spoole...Group -
Rsyslog Logs Sent To Remote Host
If system logs are to be useful in detecting malicious activities, it is necessary to send logs to a remote server. An intruder who has compromised the root account on a system may delete the log e...Group -
iptables and ip6tables
A host-based firewall called <code>netfilter</code> is included as part of the Linux kernel distributed with the system. It is activated by default. This firewall is controlled by the program <code...Group -
Inspect and Activate Default Rules
View the currently-enforced <code>iptables</code> rules by running the command: <pre>$ sudo iptables -nL --line-numbers</pre> The command is analogous for <code>ip6tables</code>. <br> <br> ...Group -
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 -
Configure Accepting Router Advertisements on All IPv6 Interfaces
To set the runtime status of the <code>net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_ra</code> kernel parameter, run the following command: <pre>$ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_ra=0</pre> To make sure that th...Rule Medium Severity -
Disable Kernel Parameter for Accepting Source-Routed Packets on all IPv6 Interfaces
To set the runtime status of the <code>net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_source_route</code> kernel parameter, run the following command: <pre>$ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_source_route=0</pre> ...Rule Medium Severity -
Prevent Routing External Traffic to Local Loopback on All IPv4 Interfaces
To set the runtime status of the <code>net.ipv4.conf.all.route_localnet</code> kernel parameter, run the following command: <pre>$ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.route_localnet=0</pre> To make su...Rule Medium Severity -
Enable Kernel Parameter to Use Reverse Path Filtering on all IPv4 Interfaces
To set the runtime status of the <code>net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter</code> kernel parameter, run the following command: <pre>$ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter=1</pre> To make sure that th...Rule Medium Severity -
Configure Sending and Accepting Shared Media Redirects for All IPv4 Interfaces
To set the runtime status of the <code>net.ipv4.conf.all.shared_media</code> kernel parameter, run the following command: <pre>$ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.shared_media=<xccdf-1.2:sub idref="...Rule Medium Severity -
Configure Kernel Parameter for Accepting Secure Redirects By Default
To set the runtime status of the <code>net.ipv4.conf.default.secure_redirects</code> kernel parameter, run the following command: <pre>$ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.default.secure_redirects=0</pre...Rule Medium Severity -
Configure Sending and Accepting Shared Media Redirects by Default
To set the runtime status of the <code>net.ipv4.conf.default.shared_media</code> kernel parameter, run the following command: <pre>$ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.default.shared_media=<xccdf-1.2:sub...Rule Medium Severity -
Disable Kernel Parameter for Sending ICMP Redirects on all IPv4 Interfaces
To set the runtime status of the <code>net.ipv4.conf.all.send_redirects</code> kernel parameter, run the following command: <pre>$ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.send_redirects=0</pre> To make su...Rule Medium Severity -
nftables
<code>If firewalld or iptables are being used in your environment, please follow the guidance in their respective section and pass-over the guidance in this section.</code><br><br> nftables is a su...Group -
Install nftables Package
nftables provides a new in-kernel packet classification framework that is based on a network-specific Virtual Machine (VM) and a new nft userspace command line tool. nftables reuses the existing Ne...Rule Medium 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 ufw Active
Verify the ufw is enabled on the system with the following command:# sudo ufw status
If the above command returns the status as "inactive" or any type of error, this is a finding.Rule Medium Severity -
ufw Must rate-limit network interfaces
The operating system must configure the uncomplicated firewall to rate-limit impacted network interfaces. Check all the services listening to the ports with the following command: <pre>$ sudo ss -...Rule Medium Severity -
Disable DCCP Support
The Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP) is a relatively new transport layer protocol, designed to support streaming media and telephony. To configure the system to prevent the <code>dccp</...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 -
Disable SCTP Support
The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is a transport layer protocol, designed to support the idea of message-oriented communication, with several streams of messages within one connection...Rule Medium Severity -
Disable TIPC Support
The Transparent Inter-Process Communication (TIPC) protocol is designed to provide communications between nodes in a cluster. To configure the system to prevent the <code>tipc</code> kernel module...Rule Low Severity -
Wireless Networking
Wireless networking, such as 802.11 (WiFi) and Bluetooth, can present a security risk to sensitive or classified systems and networks. Wireless networking hardware is much more likely to be include...Group -
Deactivate Wireless Network Interfaces
Deactivating wireless network interfaces should prevent normal usage of the wireless capability. <br> <br> Verify that there are no wireless interfaces configured on the system with the f...Rule Medium Severity -
Verify User Who Owns passwd File
To properly set the owner of/etc/passwd, run the command:$ sudo chown root /etc/passwd
Rule Medium Severity -
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 Permissions on /etc/audit/auditd.conf
To properly set the permissions of/etc/audit/auditd.conf, run the command:$ sudo chmod 0640 /etc/audit/auditd.conf
Rule Medium Severity -
Verify Permissions on /etc/audit/rules.d/*.rules
To properly set the permissions of/etc/audit/rules.d/*.rules, run the command:$ sudo chmod 0640 /etc/audit/rules.d/*.rules
Rule Medium Severity
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