Detections
Analytics

ESXI-67-000039 - Active Directory ESX Admin group membership must not be used when adding ESXi hosts to Active Directory.

Information

When adding ESXi hosts to Active Directory (AD), all user/group accounts assigned to the AD group 'ESX Admins' will have full administrative access to the host. If this group is not controlled or known to the System Administrators, it may be used for inappropriate access to the host. Therefore, the default group must be changed to a site-specific AD group and membership therein must be severely restricted.

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000104-VMM-000500, SRG-OS-000109-VMM-000550, SRG-OS-000112-VMM-000560, SRG-OS-000113-VMM-000570

Solution

From the vSphere Client, select the ESXi host and go to Configuration >> System >> Advanced System Settings.

Click 'Edit' and select the 'Config.HostAgent.plugins.hostsvc.esxAdminsGroup' key and configure its value to an appropriate Active Directory group other than 'ESX Admins'.

or

From a PowerCLI command prompt while connected to the ESXi host, run the following commands:

Get-VMHost | Get-AdvancedSetting -Name Config.HostAgent.plugins.hostsvc.esxAdminsGroup | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value <AD Group>

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_VMW_vSphere_6-7_Y23M07_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-2, 800-53|IA-2(5), 800-53|IA-2(8), 800-53|IA-2(9), CAT|III, CCI|CCI-000764, CCI|CCI-000770, CCI|CCI-001941, CCI|CCI-001942, Rule-ID|SV-239294r854591_rule, STIG-ID|ESXI-67-000039, Vuln-ID|V-239294

Plugin: VMware

Control ID: 8578ed9229cb6f9ec23084741532830e2dafcf3bd91ad4db2d610340cb9588e6