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Disable GNOME3 Automount Opening

An XCCDF Rule

Description

The system's default desktop environment, GNOME3, will mount devices and removable media (such as DVDs, CDs and USB flash drives) whenever they are inserted into the system. To disable automount-open within GNOME3, add or set automount-open to false in /etc/dconf/db/local.d/00-security-settings. For example:

[org/gnome/desktop/media-handling]
automount-open=false
Once the settings have been added, add a lock to /etc/dconf/db/local.d/locks/00-security-settings-lock to prevent user modification. For example:
/org/gnome/desktop/media-handling/automount-open
After the settings have been set, run dconf update.

Rationale

Automatically mounting file systems permits easy introduction of unknown devices, thereby facilitating malicious activity. Disabling automatic mounting in GNOME3 can prevent the introduction of malware via removable media. It will, however, also prevent desktop users from legitimate use of removable media.

ID
xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_rule_dconf_gnome_disable_automount_open
Severity
Medium
References
Updated



Remediation - Shell Script

# Remediation is applicable only in certain platforms
if rpm --quiet -q gdm && { [ ! -f /.dockerenv ] && [ ! -f /run/.containerenv ]; }; then

# Check for setting in any of the DConf db directories
# If files contain ibus or distro, ignore them.
# The assignment assumes that individual filenames don't contain :

Remediation - Ansible

- name: Gather the package facts
  package_facts:
    manager: auto
  tags:
  - DISA-STIG-RHEL-09-271020
  - DISA-STIG-RHEL-09-271025