RHEL-06-000243 - The RHEL 6 operating system must implement DoD-approved encryption to protect the confidentiality of SSH connections.

Information

Approved algorithms should impart some level of confidence in their implementation. These are also required for compliance.

By specifying a cipher list with the order of ciphers being in a 'strongest to weakest' orientation, the system will automatically attempt to use the strongest cipher for securing SSH connections.

Solution

Limit the ciphers to those algorithms which are FIPS-approved. The following line in '/etc/ssh/sshd_config' demonstrates use of FIPS-approved ciphers:

Ciphers aes256-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes128-ctr

Note: The man page 'sshd_config(5)' contains a list of supported ciphers.

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_RHEL_6_V2R2_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: ACCESS CONTROL

References: 800-53|AC-17(2), CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000068, Rule-ID|SV-218004r603822_rule, STIG-ID|RHEL-06-000243, STIG-Legacy|SV-50418, STIG-Legacy|V-38617, Vuln-ID|V-218004

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: c61487ab5113b067c9fbff3788d897b44019a3687a29ed85890d8c05903a79fd