All manual editing of system-relevant files shall be done using the pfedit command, which logs changes made to the files.

From Solaris 11 SPARC Security Technical Implementation Guide

Associated with: CCI-000366

SV-60809r1_rule All manual editing of system-relevant files shall be done using the pfedit command, which logs changes made to the files.

Vulnerability discussion

Editing a system file with common tools such as vi, emacs, or gedit does not allow the auditing of changes made by an operator. This reduces the capability of determining which operator made security-relevant changes to the system.

Check content

Ask the operators if they use vi, emacs, or gedit to make changes to system files. If vi, emacs, or gedit are used to make changes to system files, this is a finding.

Fix text

Advise the operators to use pdfedit or other appropriate command line tools to make system changes instead of vi, emacs, or gedit. Oracle Solaris includes administrative configuration files which use pfedit, and the solaris.admin.edit/path_to_file authorization is not recommended. Alternate commands exist which are both domain-specific and safer. For example, for the /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, or /etc/user_attr files, use instead passwd, useradd, userdel, or usermod. For the /etc/group file, use instead groupadd, groupdel, or groupmod. For updating /etc/security/auth_attr, /etc/security/exec_attr, or /etc/security/prof_attr, the preferred command is profiles.

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