The ESXi Common Information Model (CIM) service must be disabled.
An XCCDF Rule
Description
<VulnDiscussion>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 external applications such as HP SIM or Dell OpenManage for agentless, remote hardware monitoring of the ESXi host. To reduce attack surface area and following the minimum functionality principal, the CIM service must be disabled unless explicitly needed and approved.</VulnDiscussion><FalsePositives></FalsePositives><FalseNegatives></FalseNegatives><Documentable>false</Documentable><Mitigations></Mitigations><SeverityOverrideGuidance></SeverityOverrideGuidance><PotentialImpacts></PotentialImpacts><ThirdPartyTools></ThirdPartyTools><MitigationControl></MitigationControl><Responsibility></Responsibility><IAControls></IAControls>
- ID
- SV-256448r886125_rule
- Severity
- Medium
- References
- Updated
Remediation - Manual Procedure
From the vSphere Client, go to Hosts and Clusters.
Select the ESXi Host >> Configure >> System >> Services.
Select the "CIM Server" service. If the service is started, click "Stop".