5.3.5 Ensure SSH LogLevel is appropriate

Information

INFO level is the basic level that only records login activity of SSH users. In many situations, such as Incident Response, it is important to determine when a particular user was active on a system. The logout record can eliminate those users who disconnected, which helps narrow the field.

VERBOSE level specifies that login and logout activity as well as the key fingerprint for any SSH key used for login will be logged. This information is important for SSH key management, especially in legacy environments.

Rationale:

SSH provides several logging levels with varying amounts of verbosity. DEBUG is specifically not recommended other than strictly for debugging SSH communications since it provides so much data that it is difficult to identify important security information.

Solution

Edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file to set the parameter as follows:

LogLevel VERBOSE

OR

LogLevel INFO

Default Value:

LogLevel INFO

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/3208

Item Details

Category: AUDIT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

References: 800-53|AU-12c.

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 764c9a0d426cc1a33ea9f62d87c48e0e7741c112769164184ec26473951df1e4