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6.3.3.9 Ensure discretionary access control permission modification events are collected

Warning! Audit Deprecated

This audit has been deprecated and will be removed in a future update.

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Information

Monitor changes to file permissions, attributes, ownership and group. The parameters in this section track changes for system calls that affect file permissions and attributes. The following commands and system calls effect the permissions, ownership and various attributes of files.

 - chmod
 - fchmod
 - fchmodat
 - chown
 - fchown
 - fchownat
 - lchown
 - setxattr
 - lsetxattr
 - fsetxattr
 - removexattr
 - lremovexattr
 - fremovexattr

In all cases, an audit record will only be written for non-system user ids and will ignore Daemon events. All audit records will be tagged with the identifier "perm_mod."

Monitoring for changes in file attributes could alert a system administrator to activity that could indicate intruder activity or policy violation.

Solution

Create audit rules

Edit or create a file in the /etc/audit/rules.d/ directory, ending in .rules extension, with the relevant rules to monitor discretionary access control permission modification events.

Example:

# {
UID_MIN=$(awk '/^\s*UID_MIN/{print $2}' /etc/login.defs)
[ -n "${UID_MIN}" ] && printf "
-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S chmod,fchmod,fchmodat -F auid>=${UID_MIN} -F auid!=unset -F key=perm_mod
-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S chown,fchown,lchown,fchownat -F auid>=${UID_MIN} -F auid!=unset -F key=perm_mod
-a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S chmod,fchmod,fchmodat -F auid>=${UID_MIN} -F auid!=unset -F key=perm_mod
-a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S lchown,fchown,chown,fchownat -F auid>=${UID_MIN} -F auid!=unset -F key=perm_mod
-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S setxattr,lsetxattr,fsetxattr,removexattr,lremovexattr,fremovexattr -F auid>=${UID_MIN} -F auid!=unset -F key=perm_mod
-a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S setxattr,lsetxattr,fsetxattr,removexattr,lremovexattr,fremovexattr -F auid>=${UID_MIN} -F auid!=unset -F key=perm_mod
" >> /etc/audit/rules.d/50-perm_mod.rules || printf "ERROR: Variable 'UID_MIN' is unset.\n"
}

Load audit rules

Merge and load the rules into active configuration:

# augenrules --load

Check if reboot is required.

# if [[ $(auditctl -s | grep "enabled") =~ "2" ]]; then printf "Reboot required to load rules\n"; fi

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/18211

Item Details

References: CSCv7|5.5

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 4b49e1d0e851cb60ebae58951601f2ca8d33de97e300b15fef2ad74191c105d9