The SLES for vRealize must prevent direct logon into the root account.

From VMware vRealize Operations Manager 6.x SLES Security Technical Implementation Guide

Part of SRG-OS-000109-GPOS-00056

Associated with: CCI-000770

SV-99225r1_rule The SLES for vRealize must prevent direct logon into the root account.

Vulnerability discussion

To assure individual accountability and prevent unauthorized access, organizational users must be individually identified and authenticated.A group authenticator is a generic account used by multiple individuals. Use of a group authenticator alone does not uniquely identify individual users. Examples of the group authenticator is the UNIX OS "root" user account, the Windows "Administrator" account, the "sa" account, or a "helpdesk" account.For example, the UNIX and Windows operating systems offer a 'switch user' capability allowing users to authenticate with their individual credentials and, when needed, 'switch' to the administrator role. This method provides for unique individual authentication prior to using a group authenticator.Users (and any processes acting on behalf of users) need to be uniquely identified and authenticated for all accesses other than those accesses explicitly identified and documented by the organization, which outlines specific user actions that can be performed on the operating system without identification or authentication.Requiring individuals to be authenticated with an individual authenticator prior to using a group authenticator allows for traceability of actions, as well as adding an additional level of protection of the actions that can be taken with group account knowledge.

Check content

Verify SLES for vRealize prevents direct logons to the root account by running the following command: # grep root /etc/shadow | cut -d "":"" -f 2 If the returned message contains any text, this is a finding.

Fix text

Configure SLES for vRealize to prevent direct logins to the root account by performing the following operations: Add this line to the "/etc/group" file: admin:x:[UNIQUE_NUMBER]:[USERNAME] USERNAME is the user you wish to add to the admin group. UNIQUE_NUMBER is a number entered into the ID field of an entry that is unique to all other IDs in the file. Comment out the following lines in "/etc/sudoers" file: Default targetpw ALL ALL=(ALL) ALL Under the line in the "/etc/sudoers" file: root ALL=(ALL) All Add the following line: %admin ALL=(ALL) ALL Run the following command: # passwd -d root

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