You're 100% correct that the G doesn't mean Guideline to the auditors.

I have no idea how to fix this, and I understand their perspective. A guideline becomes policy when the local authority says it does.

The only policies that I know of that are backed by law, are NIST 800-53 and CNSS 1253 per FISMA and Executive Order.

Trevor

On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 10:50 AM, Sean <smalder73@gmail.com> wrote:
I have spoken on the phone with the person who answer the DISA STIG Support emails (at least for RHEL 7), and have picked up some interesting perspectives.

1.  From DISA's point of view, the "G" in STIG really does mean Guideline, not Policy/Procedure.

2.  That it is not DISA's place to tell you how to skin the cat.  The Fix Text is an example, and accomplishing the intent of the control is what should be focused on.

I related to him how we went through a CSA in May and the auditor required us to benchmark all Unix/Linux systems against DOD's HPCMP's Radix Tool.  Which for RHEL 7, was based on the 2nd Draft at the time, and I discussed how we configure sysctl rules in /etc/sysctl.d/ files instead of /etc/sysctl.conf, so all those checks had to be Documented and Explained for their failures.  I told him the auditors don't read the "G" as meaning Guidline, they want the system to pass a test that checks against what DISA publishes as "Gospel".  He told me to have the auditor call him next time.



--Sean

On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 10:18 AM, Meinecke, Lee <lee.meinecke@gtri.gatech.edu> wrote:

I find it interesting that DISA is not planning on publishing RHEL7 benchmark content for use with SPAWAR SCC tool. Most of my DoD customers request non-compliance results in that format.


As for accreditation the SCA-V teams are typically asking for STIG Viewer manual checklists for each host during their site visits. I suppose if we can use oscap to generate the results and then import them successfully into the STIG Viewer that would suffice. The manual checklists would be painful to complete if you couldn't import automated scan results.


Lee Meinecke


From: Reese, Brian J CTR (US) <brian.j.reese.ctr@mail.mil>
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2017 9:04 AM
To: SCAP Security Guide
Subject: Re: Loss of EL7 STIG profiles
 
Hello,

I can think of a few reasons why DISA would release its own automation content even though it can be obtained direct from Red Hat, and I'm discouraged by your statement that DISA does not plan on releasing automation content for RHEL 7.

First, my understanding is that the SSG content is primarily written and tested against OpenSCAP. However internally within DoD, the primary "approved" SCAP tools are the SPAWAR SCC and McAfee Policy Auditor (Nessus/Security Center also support it as part of the ACAS program). I know as long as it's compliant with the spec it "should" work, but there could always be issues. DISA published content however is tested with these tools.

Second, does the SSG content have the appropriate metadata to be ingested by DISA tools and reporting requirements? I'm thinking about things like the Rule ID, Vulnerability ID, DoD Severity, etc. Can the output from the SSG content be imported into a STIG checklist using the DISA STIG Viewer (http://iase.disa.mil/stigs/Pages/stig-viewing-guidance.aspx)?

Finally, DoD auditors might not accept the results using vendor-provided SCAP content/tools over content and tools have been officially released and tested by DISA, which means for RHEL 7, assessors will have to resort to doing manual reviews of the STIG.

I apologize if some of this has already been discussed, but I've mostly been working with RHEL 6, which DISA currently releases content for, so I've only casually been following SSG and have not personally used it.

v/r,
Brian Reese

-----Original Message-----
From: Shawn Wells [mailto:shawn@redhat.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2017 7:11 PM
To: scap-security-guide@lists.fedorahosted.org
Subject: [Non-DoD Source] Re: Loss of EL7 STIG profiles

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On 7/20/17 4:13 PM, Moessbauer, David wrote:


        All,

        

        Our program is currently working through the architecting of the next release, and the decision point is upon us WRT OS version - RHEL6 or RHEL7.  One significant factor (at least from a cybersecurity perspective, is the ability to efficiently / effectively conduct STIG reviews via the SCAP tools.

        

        This said, is there any place I could ascertain the projected release of the RHEL 7 Benchmarks?

        

        I apologize if this is not the appropriate venue for such a question, or if it is so obviously in front of me I should already know, but honestly I have not closely monitored this feed of late, since I have been stuck in the RHEL 5 world and trying to keep the system secure in that context.

        


RHEL 6.4+ and RHEL7.x ship automation content.

It sounds like your systems are very long-lived, given that you're dealing with RHEL5. Note that RHEL6 is has entered "Production Phase 3" which means no new features or hardware enablement [0].

If you're asking for when *DISA* will release automation content: They've stated they have no intention to release automation content for Red Hat STIGs moving forward. This isn't terrible... e.g. why should DISA release automation content when it's delivered natively in the platform (via the SCAP Security Guide)?


[0]Caution-https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata#Production_3_Phase < Caution-https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata#Production_3_Phase >


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Trevor Vaughan
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(410) 541-6699 x788

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