On 7/20/17 3:57 AM, Chuck Atkins wrote:
I've been using the SCAP Security Guide for the past two years
to
manage the lock down and deployment of EL7 machines in our lab and one
of the best features I've seen is the move from a single "STIG for Red
Hat Enterprise Linux" profile targeting servers to three separate
profiles for Server, Server with GUI, and Workstation. I just used
the EL7 STIG Workstation profile this week with the SSG in the EL7
repos. It's extremely useful to me since all of our machines are used
as workstations, not servers, so to have a profile that works out of
the box without needing to do excessive customization, and in turn,
justification of said customizations is very handy.
So imagine my surprise and dismay when I used the most recent release
from the Copr repo and discovered that my convenient separate profiles
were now all gone to align with the recently released singular DISA
server profile. Are there any plans with the various contributors
involved (RH, DoD, others, etc.) to re-work the server STIG profile
again to have a separate upstream-supported STIG profile for
Workstation usage? Having it in previous releases has proven to be an
extremely useful feature and I would hate to see it regress back to
"Linux is just for servers".
The profile split started when DISA wanted to include desktop
configuration checks in their RHEL7 STIG. In theory this was ideal,
however no desktop content existed. DISA wanted to independently verify
all desktop hardening recommendations from DoD, NSA, Red Hat, and those
that were already in SSG. This was taking months... IIRC, over 6+ months
were spent waiting for DISA to validate various controls. In phone
calls, we went back and forth over what should and should not be
included. Agreements that were made somehow ended up not being included
in DISA's incremental drafts -- and we'd have to start the dialogs all over.
We got to the point where our collaborators at DISA agreed to release a
"RHEL7 Base STIG," and a future "RHEL7 Base+Desktop" would be
released
at a future date. This would allow /something/ to be published rapidly.
Our DISA collaborators agreed on this approach and ran it up their
management chain. That was when (in SSG) we split the profiles.
Unfortunately, a few weeks later, we learned that someone in upper
management at DISA disagreed. They decided waiting for all desktop
settings to be included in DISA's content was the right approach. In
part this is understandable... they knew getting an incremental DISA
STIG release would take at least a year because of their processes.
Ultimately DISA ended up releasing a combined Server+Desktop STIG.
Perhaps due to the incredible pressure to just release something, they
left off dozens of desktop related checks. Top of mind examples:
- Blank the screen saver
- Use encrypted X11 forwarding
- Enforce login retries when using a GUI
- Disable WiFi
- Disable geolocation
DISA stated they would "rebase" their content on recommendations
provided to them by DISA, NIST, NSA, and Red Hat. That was over 6 months
ago now and no updates are planned. If having DISA release updated
content is important to you, I'd recommend reaching out to them directly.
For now, the "stig-rhel7-disa" profile aligns to DISA's content.....
even if their requirement coverage is incomplete. The SSG content does
differ from DISA's in that we use correct file paths to evaluate
configuration settings and ensured the values (e.g. on/off) are
appropriate. There are something like 50-75 bugs in DISA's content that
have been fixed (or never even present) in SSG. You can find that
profile here:
https://github.com/OpenSCAP/scap-security-guide/blob/master/RHEL/7/input/...
In the mean time, we've moved forward with other DoD elements to align a
US Government-wide baseline that incorporated DoD, Intelligence, and
Civilian configuration requirements. That is reflected in the ospp-rhel7
profile:
https://github.com/OpenSCAP/scap-security-guide/blob/master/RHEL/7/input/...
Which maps to the following
This baseline implements configuration requirements from the
following
documents:
- Committee on National Security Systems Instruction No. 1253 (CNSSI
1253)
- NIST Controlled Unclassified Information (NIST 800-171)
- NIST 800-53 control selections for MODERATE impact systems (NIST
800-53)
- U.S. Government Configuration Baseline (USGCB)
- NIAP Protection Profile for General Purpose Operating Systems v4.0
(OSPP v4.0)
- DISA Operating System Security Requirements Guide (OS SRG)
The ospp-rhel7 profile contains *all* the desktop checks that currently
exist, whereas the DISA profile leaves them off (because DISA leaves
them off in their content). Hopefully it'll be useful for you.