The operating system must employ cryptographic mechanisms to protect information in storage.

From Apple OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) Workstation STIG

Associated with: CCI-001019

SV-65717r1_rule The operating system must employ cryptographic mechanisms to protect information in storage.

Vulnerability discussion

When data is written to digital media, such as hard drives, mobile computers, external/removable hard drives, personal digital assistants, flash/thumb drives, etc., there is risk of data loss and data compromise. An organizational assessment of risk guides the selection of media and associated information contained on the media requiring restricted access. Organizations need to document in policy and procedures the media requiring restricted access, individuals authorized to access the media, and the specific measures taken to restrict access. Fewer protection measures are needed for media containing information determined by the organization to be in the public domain, to be publicly releasable, or to have limited or no adverse impact if accessed by other than authorized personnel. In these situations, it is assumed the physical access controls where the media resides provide adequate protection. As part of a defense-in-depth strategy, the organization considers routinely encrypting information at rest on selected secondary storage devices. The employment of cryptography is at the discretion of the information owner/steward. The selection of the cryptographic mechanisms used is based upon maintaining the confidentiality and integrity of the information.

Check content

To check if FileVault 2 is enabled, run the following command: sudo fdesetup status If FileVault is "OFF", this is a finding.

Fix text

Open System Preferences->Security and Privacy, and navigate to the FileVault tab. Use this panel to configure full-disk encryption.

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