5.4 Limit CIM Access

Information

Do not provide administrator level access (i.e. root) to CIM-based hardware monitoring
tools or other 3rd party applications.Create a service account specific for each CIM application with the minimal needed access
for each application.

*Rationale*

The Common Information Model (CIM) system provides an interface that enables
hardware-level management from remote applications using a set of standard APIs. To
ensure that the CIM interface remains secure, provide only the minimum access necessary
to these applications. Do not provision CIM and other 3rd party tools to run as root or
another administrator account. Instead, use a dedicated service account with a limited
privilege set. If CIM or other 3rd party are granted unneeded administrator level access,
they could potentially be use to compromise the security of the host.

NOTE: Nessus has not performed this check. Please review the benchmark to ensure target compliance.

Solution

To implement the recommended configuration state, run the following PowerCLI
command-# Create a new host user account -Host Local connection required-
New-VMHostAccount -ID ServiceUser -Password <password> -UserAccount

Impact-
When a user logs into the host with the service account you created for CIM applications,
the user has only the privileges SystemManagement and CIMInteraction, or read-only
access.

Default Value-The prescribed state is not the default state.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/145

Item Details

Category: CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

References: 800-53|CM-7

Plugin: VMware

Control ID: 83687bfeb53a1ee0ef3ed4a49dba9b3a2bb55d52bd852a82b8684ac3ab1009ea