Solaris 11 SPARC Security Technical Implementation Guide

Enabling the audit system will produce records with accurate time stamps, source, user, and activity information. Without this information malicious activity cannot be accurately tracked.

Without an audit reporting capability, users find it difficult to identify specific patterns of attack.

Without auditing, individual system accesses cannot be tracked, and malicious activity cannot be detected and traced back to an individual account. Without accurate time stamps, source, user, and activity information, malicious activity cannot be accurately tracked. Without an audit reduction and reporting capability, users find it difficult to identify specific patterns of attack.

Without proper system auditing, individual system accesses cannot be tracked, and malicious activity cannot be detected and traced back to an individual account.

Without accurate time stamps malicious activity cannot be accurately tracked.

Without auditing, individual system accesses cannot be tracked, and malicious activity cannot be detected and traced back to an individual account. Without accurate time stamps, source, user, and activity information, malicious activity cannot be accurately tracked. Without an audit reduction and reporting capability, users find it difficult to identify specific patterns of attack.

Without accurate source information malicious activity cannot be accurately tracked.

Tracking both the successful and unsuccessful attempts aids in identifying threats to the system.

If the startup files are writable by other users, these users could modify the startup files to insert malicious commands into the startup files.

The executable search path (typically the PATH environment variable) contains a list of directories for the shell to search to find executables. If this path includes the current working directory or other relative paths, executables in these directories may be executed instead of system commands. This variable is formatted as a colon-separated list of directories. If there is an empty entry, such as a leading or trailing colon, two consecutive colons, or a single period, this is interpreted as the current working directory. Paths starting with a slash (/) are absolute paths.

System start-up files not owned by root could lead to system compromise by allowing malicious users or applications to modify them for unauthorized purposes. This could lead to system and network compromise.

If system start-up files do not have a group owner of root or a system group, the files may be modified by malicious users or intruders.

.Xauthority files ensure the user is authorized to access the specific X Windows host. Excessive permissions may permit unauthorized modification of these files, which could lead to Denial of Service to authorized access or allow unauthorized access to be obtained.

Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting guessing and brute-force attacks. Password length is one factor of several that helps to determine strength and how long it takes to crack a password. The shorter the password is, the lower the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised. Use of more characters in a password helps to exponentially increase the time and/or resources required to compromise the password.

Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting guessing and brute-force attacks. To meet password policy requirements, passwords need to be changed at specific policy-based intervals. If the operating system allows the user to consecutively reuse their password when the password has exceeded its defined lifetime, the end result is a password that is not changed, per policy requirements.

To ensure password changes are effective in their goals, the system must ensure old and new passwords have significant differences. Without significant changes, new passwords may be easily guessed based on the value of a previously compromised password.

Complex passwords can reduce the likelihood of success of automated password-guessing attacks.

Complex passwords can reduce the likelihood of success of automated password-guessing attacks.

Complex passwords can reduce the likelihood of success of automated password-guessing attacks.

Complex passwords can reduce the likelihood of success of automated password-guessing attacks.

Complex passwords can reduce the likelihood of success of automated password-guessing attacks.

Cryptographic hashes provide quick password authentication while not actually storing the password.

Allowing continued access to accounts on the system exposes them to brute-force password-guessing attacks.

As an immediate return of an error message, coupled with the capability to try again, may facilitate automatic and rapid-fire brute-force password attacks by a malicious user.

Allowing access to a graphical environment when the user is not attending the system can allow unauthorized users access to the system.

Allowing access to a graphical environment when the user is not attending the system can allow unauthorized users access to the system.

The use of common words in passwords simplifies password-cracking attacks.

Allowing any user to elevate their privileges can allow them excessive control of the system tools.

Setting a very secure default value for umask ensures that users make a conscious choice about their file permissions.

Login services should not be enabled on any serial ports that are not strictly required to support the mission of the system. This action can be safely performed even when console access is provided using a serial port.

If login by the user "nobody" is allowed for secure RPC, there is an increased risk of system compromise. If keyserv holds a private key for the "nobody" user, it will be used by key_encryptsession to compute a magic phrase which can be easily recovered by a malicious user.

As enabling X11 Forwarding on the host can permit a malicious user to secretly open another X11 connection to another remote client during the session and perform unobtrusive activities such as keystroke monitoring, if the X11 services are not required for the system's intended function, they should be disabled or restricted as appropriate to the user's needs.

Setting this parameter forces users to enter a password when authenticating with SSH.

The system should not allow users to log in as the root user directly, as audited actions would be non-attributable to a specific user.

The use of .rhosts authentication is an insecure protocol and can be replaced with public-key authentication using Secure Shell. As automatic authentication settings in the .rhosts files can provide a malicious user with sensitive system credentials, the use of .rhosts files should be disabled.

FTP is an insecure protocol that transfers files and credentials in clear text, and can be replaced by using SFTP. However, if FTP is permitted for use in the environment, it is important to ensure that the default "system" accounts are not permitted to transfer files via FTP, especially the root role. Consider also adding the names of other privileged or shared accounts that may exist on the system such as user "oracle" and the account which the web server process runs under.

Use an authorized mechanism such as RBAC and the "su" command to provide administrative access to unprivileged accounts. These mechanisms provide an audit trail in the event of problems.

A session time-out lock is a temporary action taken when a user stops work and moves away from the immediate physical vicinity of the system but does not log out because of the temporary nature of the absence. The session lock will also include an obfuscation of the display screen to prevent other users from reading what was previously displayed.

Non-local maintenance and diagnostic activities are those activities conducted by individuals communicating through a network, either an external network (e.g., the Internet) or an internal network. The operating system needs to ensure all sessions and network connections are terminated when non-local maintenance is completed.

Group-writable or world-writable user home directories may enable malicious users to steal or modify other users' data or to gain another user's system privileges.

.netrc files may contain unencrypted passwords that can be used to attack other systems.

Groups defined in passwd but not in group file pose a threat to system security since group permissions are not properly managed.

If a user is assigned a UID that is in the reserved range, even if it is not presently in use, security exposures can arise if a subsequently installed application uses the same UID.

The .netrc file presents a significant security risk since it stores passwords in unencrypted form.

Use of the .forward file poses a security risk in that sensitive data may be inadvertently transferred outside the organization. The .forward file also poses a secondary risk as it can be used to execute commands that may perform unintended actions.

All accounts with a GID of 0 have root group privileges and must be limited to the group account only.

Recovery and reconstitution constitutes executing an operating system contingency plan comprised of activities to restore essential missions and business functions. Transaction rollback and transaction journaling are examples of mechanisms supporting transaction recovery. While this is typically a database function, operating systems could be transactional in nature with respect to file processing.

Mobile devices include portable storage media (e.g., USB memory sticks, external hard disk drives) and portable computing and communications devices with information storage capability (e.g., notebook/laptop computers, personal digital assistants, cellular telephones, digital cameras, audio recording devices). Organization-controlled mobile devices include those devices for which the organization has the authority to specify and the ability to enforce specific security requirements. Usage restrictions and implementation guidance related to mobile devices include configuration management, device identification and authentication, implementation of mandatory protective software (e.g., malicious code detection, firewall), scanning devices for malicious code, updating virus protection software, scanning for critical software updates and patches, conducting primary operating system (and possibly other resident software) integrity checks, and disabling unnecessary hardware (e.g., wireless, infrared). In order to detect unauthorized mobile device connections, organizations must first identify and document what mobile devices are authorized.

Using the audit system will utilize the audit reduction capability. Without an audit reduction capability, users find it difficult to identify specific patterns of attack.

Enabling the audit system will produce records for use in report generation. Without an audit reporting capability, users find it difficult to identify specific patterns of attack.

Without auditing, individual system accesses cannot be tracked, and malicious activity cannot be detected and traced back to an individual account. Without accurate time stamps, source, user, and activity information, malicious activity cannot be accurately tracked. Without an audit reduction and reporting capability, users find it difficult to identify specific patterns of attack.

Without auditing, individual system accesses cannot be tracked, and malicious activity cannot be detected and traced back to an individual account. Without accurate time stamps, source, user, and activity information, malicious activity cannot be accurately tracked. Without an audit reduction and reporting capability, users find it difficult to identify specific patterns of attack.

Filling the audit storage area can result in a denial of service or system outage and can lead to events going undetected.

Mobile devices include portable storage media (e.g., USB memory sticks, external hard disk drives) and portable computing and communications devices with information storage capability (e.g., notebook/laptop computers, personal digital assistants, cellular telephones, digital cameras, audio recording devices). Auto execution vulnerabilities can result in malicious programs being automatically executed. Examples of information system functionality providing the capability for automatic execution of code are Auto Run and Auto Play. Auto Run and Auto Play are components of the Microsoft Windows operating system that dictate what actions the system takes when a drive is mounted. This requirement is designed to address vulnerabilities that arise when mobile devices such as USB memory sticks or other mobile storage devices are automatically mounted and applications are automatically invoked without user knowledge or acceptance.

Allowing any user to elevate their privileges can allow them excessive control of the system tools.