Virtual disk wiping must be disabled on the virtual machine (VM).
An XCCDF Rule
Description
<VulnDiscussion>Shrinking and wiping (erasing) a virtual disk reclaims unused space in it. If there is empty space in the disk, this process reduces the amount of space the virtual disk occupies on the host drive. Normal users and processes (those without root or administrator privileges) within virtual machines have the capability to invoke this procedure. However, if this is done repeatedly, the virtual disk can become unavailable while this shrinking is being performed, effectively causing a denial of service. In most datacenter environments, disk shrinking is not done, so this feature must be disabled. Repeated disk shrinking can make a virtual disk unavailable. The capability to wipe (erase) is available to nonadministrative users operating within the VM's guest operating system.</VulnDiscussion><FalsePositives></FalsePositives><FalseNegatives></FalseNegatives><Documentable>false</Documentable><Mitigations></Mitigations><SeverityOverrideGuidance></SeverityOverrideGuidance><PotentialImpacts></PotentialImpacts><ThirdPartyTools></ThirdPartyTools><MitigationControl></MitigationControl><Responsibility></Responsibility><IAControls></IAControls>
- ID
- SV-256454r886405_rule
- Severity
- Medium
- References
- Updated
Remediation - Manual Procedure
From the vSphere Client, right-click the Virtual Machine and go to Edit Settings >> VM Options >> Advanced >> Configuration Parameters >> Edit Configuration.
Find the "isolation.tools.diskWiper.disable" value and set it to "true".
If the setting does not exist, add the Name and Value setting at the bottom of screen.