Record Attempts to Alter Process and Session Initiation Information

Description

The audit system already collects process information for all users and root. If the auditd daemon is configured to use the augenrules program to read audit rules during daemon startup (the default), add the following lines to a file with suffix .rules in the directory /etc/audit/rules.d in order to watch for attempted manual edits of files involved in storing such process information:

-w /var/run/utmp -p wa -k session
-w /var/log/btmp -p wa -k session
-w /var/log/wtmp -p wa -k session

If the auditd daemon is configured to use the auditctl utility to read audit rules during daemon startup, add the following lines to /etc/audit/audit.rules file in order to watch for attempted manual edits of files involved in storing such process information:

-w /var/run/utmp -p wa -k session
-w /var/log/btmp -p wa -k session
-w /var/log/wtmp -p wa -k session

Rationale

Manual editing of these files may indicate nefarious activity, such as an attacker attempting to remove evidence of an intrusion.