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Objective ID
Severity
Discussion
V-216891
high
Antivirus signature files are updated almost daily by antivirus software vendors. These files are made available to antivirus clients as they are published. Keeping virus signature files as current as possible is vital to the security of any system.
V-216892
high
For antivirus software to be effective, it must be running at all times, beginning from the point of the system's initial startup. Otherwise, the risk is greater for viruses, trojans, and other malware infecting the system during that startup phase.
V-216893
medium
Boot sector viruses will install into the boot sector of a system, ensuring that they will execute when the user boots the system. This risk is mitigated by scanning boot sectors at each startup of the system.
V-216894
medium
Computer viruses in the early days of personal computing were almost exclusively passed around by floppy disks. Floppy disks would be used to boot the computer and, if infected, would infect the hard drive files as well. Although floppy drives have fallen out of use, it is still a good security practice, whenever the antivirus software allows, to enable the scanning software to scan a floppy disk at shutdown.
V-216895
medium
"An effective awareness program explains proper rules of behavior for use of an organization's IT systems and information. Accordingly, awareness programs should include guidance to users on malware incident prevention, which can help reduce the frequency and severity of malware incidents.
Organizations should also make users aware of policies and procedures that apply to malware incident handling, such as how to identify if a host may be infected, how to report a suspected incident, and what users need to do to assist with incident handling.
Ensuring the antivirus software alerts the users when malware is detected will ensure the user is informed of the incident and be able to more closely relate the incident to actions being performed by the user at the time of the detection."
Organizations should also make users aware of policies and procedures that apply to malware incident handling, such as how to identify if a host may be infected, how to report a suspected incident, and what users need to do to assist with incident handling.
Ensuring the antivirus software alerts the users when malware is detected will ensure the user is informed of the incident and be able to more closely relate the incident to actions being performed by the user at the time of the detection."
V-216896
medium
Good incident response analysis includes reviewing all logs and alerts on the system reporting the infection. If users were permitted to remove alerts from the display, incident response forensic analysis would be inhibited.
V-216897
medium
Log management is essential to ensuring that computer security records are stored in sufficient detail for an appropriate period of time. Routine log analysis is beneficial for identifying security incidents, policy violations, fraudulent activity, and operational problems. Logs are also useful when performing auditing and forensic analysis, supporting internal investigations, establishing baselines, and identifying operational trends and long-term problems.
V-216898
medium
While logging is imperative to forensic analysis, logs could grow to the point of impacting disk space on the system. In order to avoid the risk of logs growing to the size of impacting the operating system, the log size will be restricted, but must also be large enough to retain forensic value.
V-216899
medium
Log management is essential to ensuring that computer security records are stored in sufficient detail for an appropriate period of time. Routine log analysis is beneficial for identifying security incidents, policy violations, fraudulent activity, and operational problems. Logs are also useful when performing auditing and forensic analysis, supporting internal investigations, establishing baselines, and identifying operational trends and long-term problems.
V-216900
medium
While logging is imperative to forensic analysis, logs could grow to the point of impacting disk space on the system. In order to avoid the risk of logs growing to the size of impacting the operating system, the log size will be restricted. If the data in the log file exceeds the file size set, the oldest 20 percent of the entries are deleted and new data is appended to the file, so although the file size is restricted, it must also be large enough to retain forensic value.
V-216901
medium
Antivirus signature files are updated almost daily by antivirus software vendors. These files are made available to antivirus clients as they are published. Keeping virus signature files as current as possible is vital to the security of any system. The antivirus software product must be configured to receive those updates automatically in order to afford the expected protection.
V-216902
medium
Email has become one of the most frequently used methods of spreading malware, through embedded HTML code and attachments. User awareness and training, warning users to not open suspicious emails or email attachments, and not clicking on hyperlinks, etc. from unknown or known senders, will not fully protect from email-borne malware. Mass mailing worms are similar to email-borne viruses, but are self-contained, rather than infecting an existing file. Protecting from email-borne viruses and mass mailing worms by scanning email upon delivery mitigates the risk of infection via email.
V-216903
medium
Email has become one of the most frequently used methods of spreading malware, through embedded HTML code and attachments. User awareness and training, warning users to not open suspicious emails or email attachments, and not clicking on hyperlinks, etc. from unknown or known senders, will not fully protect from email-borne malware. Mass mailing worms are similar to email-borne viruses, but are self-contained, rather than infecting an existing file. Protecting from email-borne viruses and mass mailing worms by scanning email upon delivery mitigates the risk of infection via email.
V-216904
medium
Email has become one of the most frequently used methods of spreading malware, through embedded HTML code and attachments. User awareness and training, warning users to not open suspicious emails or email attachments, and not clicking on hyperlinks, etc. from unknown or known senders, will not fully protect from email-borne malware. Mass mailing worms are similar to email-borne viruses, but are self-contained, rather than infecting an existing file. Protecting from email-borne viruses and mass mailing worms by scanning email upon delivery mitigates the risk of infection via email.
V-216905
medium
Email has become one of the most frequently used methods of spreading malware, through embedded HTML code and attachments. User awareness and training, warning users to not open suspicious emails or email attachments, and not clicking on hyperlinks, etc. from unknown or known senders, will not fully protect from email-borne malware. Mass mailing worms are similar to email-borne viruses, but are self-contained, rather than infecting an existing file. Protecting from email-borne viruses and mass mailing worms by scanning email upon delivery mitigates the risk of infection via email.
V-216906
medium
Email has become one of the most frequently used methods of spreading malware, through embedded HTML code and attachments. User awareness and training, warning users to not open suspicious emails or email attachments, and not clicking on hyperlinks, etc. from unknown or known senders, will not fully protect from email-borne malware. Mass mailing worms are similar to email-borne viruses, but are self-contained, rather than infecting an existing file. Protecting from email-borne viruses and mass mailing worms by scanning email upon delivery mitigates the risk of infection via email.
V-216907
medium
Email has become one of the most frequently used methods of spreading malware, through embedded HTML code and attachments. User awareness and training, warning users to not open suspicious emails or email attachments, and not clicking on hyperlinks, etc. from unknown or known senders, will not fully protect from email-borne malware. Mass mailing worms are similar to email-borne viruses, but are self-contained, rather than infecting an existing file. Protecting from email-borne viruses and mass mailing worms by scanning email upon delivery mitigates the risk of infection via email.
V-216908
medium
Log management is essential to ensuring that computer security records are stored in sufficient detail for an appropriate period of time. Routine log analysis is beneficial for identifying security incidents, policy violations, fraudulent activity, and operational problems. Logs are also useful when performing auditing and forensic analysis, supporting internal investigations, establishing baselines, and identifying operational trends and long-term problems.
V-216909
medium
While logging is imperative to forensic analysis, logs could grow to the point of impacting disk space on the system. In order to avoid the risk of logs growing to the size of impacting the operating system, the log size will be restricted, but must also be large enough to retain forensic value.
V-216910
medium
Email has become one of the most frequently used methods of spreading malware, through embedded HTML code and attachments. User awareness and training, warning users to not open suspicious emails or email attachments, and not clicking on hyperlinks, etc. from unknown or known senders, will not fully protect from email-borne malware. Mass mailing worms are similar to email-borne viruses, but are self-contained, rather than infecting an existing file. Protecting from email-borne viruses and mass mailing worms by scanning email upon delivery mitigates the risk of infection via email.
V-216911
medium
Antivirus software is the mostly commonly used technical control for malware threat mitigation. Antivirus software on hosts should be configured to scan all hard drives regularly to identify any file system infections and to scan any removable media, if applicable, before media is inserted into the system. Not scheduling a regular scan of the hard drives of a system and/or not configuring the scan to scan all files and running processes introduces a higher risk of threats going undetected.
V-216912
medium
Antivirus software is the mostly commonly used technical control for malware threat mitigation. Antivirus software on hosts should be configured to scan all hard drives and folders regularly to identify any file system infections and to scan any removable media, if applicable, before media is inserted into the system. Not scheduling a regular scan of the hard drives of a system and/or not configuring the scan to scan all files and running processes introduces a higher risk of threats going undetected.
V-216913
medium
Boot sector viruses will install into the boot sector of a system, ensuring that they will execute when the user boots the system. This risk is mitigated by scanning boot sectors at each startup of the system.
V-216914
medium
When scanning for malware, excluding specific file types will increase the risk of a malware-infected file going undetected. By configuring antivirus software to scan all file types, the scanner has a higher success rate at detecting and eradicating malware.
V-216915
medium
When scanning for malware, excluding specific files will increase the risk of a malware-infected file going undetected. By configuring antivirus software without any exclusions, the scanner has a higher success rate at detecting and eradicating malware.
V-216916
medium
Malware is often packaged within an archive. In addition, archives might have other archives within. Not scanning archive files introduces the risk of infected files being introduced into the environment.
V-216917
medium
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) encoded files can be crafted to hide a malicious payload. When the MIME encoded file is presented to software that decodes the MIME encoded files, such as an email client, the malware is released. Scanning these files as part of the regularly scheduled scan tasks will mitigate this risk.
V-216918
medium
Due to the ability of malware to mutate after infection, standard antivirus signatures may not be able to catch new strains or variants of the malware. Typically, these strains and variants will share unique characteristics with others in their virus family. By using a generic signature to detect the shared characteristics, using wildcards where differences lie, the generic signature can detect viruses even if they are padded with extra, meaningless code. This method of detection is Heuristic detection.
V-216919
medium
Interpreted viruses are executed by an application. Within this subcategory, macro viruses take advantage of the capabilities of applications' macro programming language to infect application documents and document templates, while scripting viruses infect scripts that are understood by scripting languages processed by services on the OS. Many attackers use toolkits containing several different types of utilities and script that can be used to probe and attack hosts. Scanning for unknown macro viruses will mitigate zero day attacks.
V-216920
medium
Malware may have infected a file that is necessary to the user. By configuring the antivirus software to first attempt cleaning the infected file, availability to the file is not sacrificed. If a cleaning attempt is not successful, however, deleting the file is the only safe option so as to ensure the malware is not introduced onto the system or network.
V-216921
medium
Malware may have infected a file that is necessary to the user. By configuring the antivirus software to first attempt cleaning the infected file, availability to the file is not sacrificed. If a cleaning attempt is not successful, however, deleting the file is the only safe option so as to ensure the malware is not introduced onto the system or network.
V-216922
medium
Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) include Spyware, Adware, Remote Administration Tools, Dialers, Password Crackers, Jokes, and Key Loggers. While PUPs do not typically have any infections capability on their own, they rely on malware or other attach mechanisms to be installed onto target hosts, after which they will collect and transfer data from the host to an external host and/or will be used as attach mechanisms. Configuring the antivirus software to attempt to clean the file first will allow for the possibility of a false positive. In most cases, however, the secondary action of delete will be used, mitigating the risk of the PUPs being installed and used maliciously.
V-216923
medium
Log management is essential to ensuring that computer security records are stored in sufficient detail for an appropriate period of time. Routine log analysis is beneficial for identifying security incidents, policy violations, fraudulent activity, and operational problems. Logs are also useful when performing auditing and forensic analysis, supporting internal investigations, establishing baselines, and identifying operational trends and long-term problems.
V-216924
medium
While logging is imperative to forensic analysis, logs could grow to the point of impacting disk space on the system. In order to avoid the risk of logs growing to the size of impacting the operating system, the log size will be restricted, but must also be large enough to retain forensic value.
V-216925
medium
Log management is essential to ensuring that computer security records are stored in sufficient detail for an appropriate period of time. Routine log analysis is beneficial for identifying security incidents, policy violations, fraudulent activity, and operational problems. Logs are also useful when performing auditing and forensic analysis, supporting internal investigations, establishing baselines, and identifying operational trends and long-term problems.
V-216926
medium
Antivirus software is the mostly commonly used technical control for malware threat mitigation. Antivirus software on hosts should be configured to scan all hard drives regularly to identify any file system infections and to scan any removable media, if applicable, before media is inserted into the system. Not scheduling a regular scan of the hard drives of a system and/or not configuring the scan to scan all files and running processes introduces a higher risk of threats going undetected.
V-216927
medium
Interpreted viruses are executed by an application. Within this subcategory, macro viruses take advantage of the capabilities of applications' macro programming language to infect application documents and document templates, while scripting viruses infect scripts that are understood by scripting languages processed by services on the OS. Many attackers use toolkits containing several different types of utilities and scripts that can be used to probe and attack hosts. (NIST SP 800-83) The scanning of scripts is crucial in preventing these attacks.
V-216928
medium
Containment during a virus outbreak is crucial. Infected hosts may attempt to spread malware and will use every network path available to them when spreading that infection. By containing the system when a detection is found, the malware will be restricted to that one system. Likewise, if malware is detected in a shared folder, maintaining the connection between a system and the shared folder would allow the malware to spread. Placing temporary restrictions on network connectivity is an effective mitigation mechanism.
These block connection settings will most often be used on a server housing shared folders and files, and will block the connection from any network user on a remote computer who attempts to read from, or write to, a threatened file in the shared folder. In addition, it will block the connection from any user on a remote computer who attempts to write an unwanted program to the computer. The connection will be unblocked after the specified amount of time, re-allowing access to the other shared files and folders, but will be re-blocked should those same file accesses be attempted.
These block connection settings will most often be used on a server housing shared folders and files, and will block the connection from any network user on a remote computer who attempts to read from, or write to, a threatened file in the shared folder. In addition, it will block the connection from any user on a remote computer who attempts to write an unwanted program to the computer. The connection will be unblocked after the specified amount of time, re-allowing access to the other shared files and folders, but will be re-blocked should those same file accesses be attempted.
V-216929
medium
Containment during a virus outbreak is crucial. Infected hosts may attempt to spread malware and will use every network path available to them when spreading that infection. By containing the system when a detection is found, the malware will be restricted to that one system. Likewise, if malware is detected in a shared folder, maintaining the connection between a system and the shared folder would allow the malware to spread. Placing temporary restrictions on network connectivity is an effective mitigation mechanism.
These block connection settings will most often be used on a server housing shared folders and files, and will block the connection from any network user on a remote computer who attempts to read from, or write to, a threatened file in the shared folder. In addition, it will block the connection from any user on a remote computer who attempts to write an unwanted program to the computer. The connection will be unblocked after the specified amount of time, re-allowing access to the other shared files and folders, but will be re-blocked should those same file accesses be attempted.
These block connection settings will most often be used on a server housing shared folders and files, and will block the connection from any network user on a remote computer who attempts to read from, or write to, a threatened file in the shared folder. In addition, it will block the connection from any user on a remote computer who attempts to write an unwanted program to the computer. The connection will be unblocked after the specified amount of time, re-allowing access to the other shared files and folders, but will be re-blocked should those same file accesses be attempted.
V-216930
medium
Containment during a virus outbreak is crucial. Infected hosts may attempt to spread malware and will use every network path available to them when spreading that infection. By containing the system when a detection is found, the malware will be restricted to that one system. Likewise, if malware is detected in a shared folder, maintaining the connection between a system and the shared folder would allow the malware to spread. Placing temporary restrictions on network connectivity is an effective mitigation mechanism.
These block connection settings will most often be used on a server housing shared folders and files and will block the connection from any network user on a remote computer who attempts to read from, or write to, a threatened file in the shared folder. In addition, it will block the connection from any user on a remote computer who attempts to write an unwanted program to the computer. The connection will be unblocked after the specified amount of time, re-allowing access to the other shared files and folders but will be re-blocked should those same file accesses be attempted.
These block connection settings will most often be used on a server housing shared folders and files and will block the connection from any network user on a remote computer who attempts to read from, or write to, a threatened file in the shared folder. In addition, it will block the connection from any user on a remote computer who attempts to write an unwanted program to the computer. The connection will be unblocked after the specified amount of time, re-allowing access to the other shared files and folders but will be re-blocked should those same file accesses be attempted.
V-216931
medium
Organizations should use centrally managed antivirus software that is controlled and monitored regularly by antivirus administrators, who are also typically responsible for acquiring, testing, approving, and delivering antivirus signature and software updates through the organizations. Some processes are known to be higher risk while others are low risk. By restricting policy configuration to the Default Processes policy, all processes will be interpreted equally when applying the policy settings, and will provide the highest level of protection. Best practice dictates configuring Low-Risk and/or High-Risk policies only when it is necessary to improve system performance and will focus the scanning where it is most likely to detect malware. There is risk associated with configuring the Low-Risk and/or High-Risk policies for the purpose of specifically excluding processes from scanning, and should only be done after evaluating other policy settings and determining risk.
V-216932
medium
Antivirus software is the most commonly used technical control for malware threat mitigation. Real-time scanning of files as they are written to disk is a crucial first line of defense from malware attacks.
V-216933
medium
Antivirus software is the most commonly used technical control for malware threat mitigation. Real-time scanning of files as they are read from disk is a crucial first line of defense from malware attacks.
V-216934
medium
When scanning for malware, excluding specific file types will increase the risk of a malware-infected file going undetected. By configuring antivirus software to scan all file types, the scanner has a higher success rate at detecting and eradicating malware.
V-216935
medium
Due to the ability of malware to mutate after infection, standard antivirus signatures may not be able to catch new strains or variants of the malware. Typically, these strains and variants will share unique characteristics with others in their virus family. By using a generic signature to detect the shared characteristics, using wildcards where differences lie, the generic signature can detect viruses even if they are padded with extra, meaningless code. This method of detection is Heuristic detection.
V-216936
medium
Due to the ability of malware to mutate after infection, standard antivirus signatures may not be able to catch new strains or variants of the malware. Typically, these strains and variants will share unique characteristics with others in their virus family. By using a generic signature to detect the shared characteristics, using wildcards where differences lie, the generic signature can detect viruses even if they are padded with extra, meaningless code. This method of detection is Heuristic detection.
V-216937
medium
Malware is often packaged within an archive. In addition, archives might have other archives within. Not scanning archive files introduces the risk of infected files being introduced into the environment.
V-216938
medium
Malware may have infected a file that is necessary to the user. By configuring the antivirus software to first attempt cleaning the infected file, availability to the file is not sacrificed. If a cleaning attempt is not successful, however, deleting the file is the only safe option so as to ensure the malware does is not introduced onto the system or network.
V-216939
medium
Malware may have infected a file that is necessary to the user. By configuring the antivirus software to first attempt cleaning the infected file, availability to the file is not sacrificed. If a cleaning attempt is not successful, however, deleting the file is the only safe option so as to ensure the malware does is not introduced onto the system or network.
V-216940
medium
Buffer overflow is an anomaly where a program, while writing data to a buffer, overruns the buffer's boundary and overwrites adjacent memory. This anomaly has been used maliciously, explicitly to craft exploits. Buffer overflow attacks compose greater than 25% of malware attacks. Without buffer overflow protection enabled, systems are more vulnerable to attacks that attempt to overwrite adjacent memory in the stack frame. Buffer overflow protection is only configurable on non-64-bit systems.
V-216941
medium
Buffer overflow is an anomaly where a program, while writing data to a buffer, overruns the buffer's boundary and overwrites adjacent memory. This anomaly has been used maliciously, explicitly to craft exploits. Buffer overflow attacks compose greater than 25% of malware attacks. Without buffer overflow protection enabled, systems are more vulnerable to attacks that attempt to overwrite adjacent memory in the stack frame. Protection mode will ensure buffer overflow is detected and blocked. Otherwise, only a warning message will be logged. Buffer overflow protection is only configurable on non-64-bit systems.
V-216942
medium
An effective awareness program explains proper rules of behavior for use of an organization's IT systems and information. Accordingly, awareness programs should include guidance to users on malware incident prevention, which can help reduce the frequency and severity of malware incidents.
Organizations should also make users aware of policies and procedures that apply to malware incident handling, such as how to identify if a host may be infected, how to report a suspected incident, and what users need to do to assist with incident handling.
Ensuring the antivirus software alerts the users when a buffer overflow is detected will ensure the user is aware of the incident and be able to more closely relate the incident to actions being performed by the user at the time of the detection.
Organizations should also make users aware of policies and procedures that apply to malware incident handling, such as how to identify if a host may be infected, how to report a suspected incident, and what users need to do to assist with incident handling.
Ensuring the antivirus software alerts the users when a buffer overflow is detected will ensure the user is aware of the incident and be able to more closely relate the incident to actions being performed by the user at the time of the detection.
V-216943
medium
Log management is essential to ensuring that computer security records are stored in sufficient detail for an appropriate period of time. Routine log analysis is beneficial for identifying security incidents, policy violations, fraudulent activity, and operational problems. Logs are also useful when performing auditing and forensic analysis, supporting internal investigations, establishing baselines, and identifying operational trends and long-term problems.
V-216944
medium
While logging is imperative to forensic analysis, logs could grow to the point of impacting disk space on the system. In order to avoid the risk of logs growing to the size of impacting the operating system, the log size will be restricted, but must also be large enough to retain forensic value.
V-216945
medium
Spyware is software that aids in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge, and that may send such information to another entity without the consumer's consent, or that asserts control over a computer without the user's knowledge. Spyware may try to deceive users by bundling itself with desirable software. A spyware infestation can create significant unwanted CPU activity, disk usage, and network traffic. Some types of spyware disable software firewalls and antivirus software. Detecting, blocking, and eradicating malicious spyware or preventing it from being installed will alleviate the negative side effects of the spyware.
V-216946
medium
Adware, like spyware, is, at best, an annoyance by presenting unwanted advertisement to the user of a computer, sometimes in the form of a popup. At worst, it redirects the user to malicious websites. Detecting and blocking will mitigate the likelihood of users being tricked into visiting sites with malicious content.
V-216947
medium
Antivirus software vendors use collective intelligence from sensors and cross-vector intelligence from web, email, and network threats to compile scores that reflect the likelihood of whether a file in question is malware. The collective intelligence is constantly being updated, more frequently than the typical daily antivirus signature files. With File Reputation lookup, a more real-time response to potential malicious code is realized than with the local-running antivirus software, since by querying the cloud-based database when a file appears to be suspicious, up-to-the-minute intelligence is provided. This type of protection reduces the threat protection time period from days to milliseconds, increases malware detection rates, and reduces downtime and remediation costs associated with malware attacks. Using File Reputation lookup is mandated by US CYBERCOM on DoD systems.
V-216948
high
When the Prevent McAfee services from being stopped check box is selected under Access Protection, VSE will prevent anyone except the System account from terminating McAfee services. This protects VirusScan from being disabled by malicious programs that seek to circumvent virus protection programs by terminating their services.
V-216949
medium
Log management is essential to ensuring that computer security records are stored in sufficient detail for an appropriate period of time. Routine log analysis is beneficial for identifying security incidents, policy violations, fraudulent activity, and operational problems. Logs are also useful when performing auditing and forensic analysis, supporting internal investigations, establishing baselines, and identifying operational trends and long-term problems.
V-216950
medium
While logging is imperative to forensic analysis, logs could grow to the point of impacting disk space on the system. In order to avoid the risk of logs growing to the size of impacting the operating system, the log size will be restricted, but must also be large enough to retain forensic value.
V-216951
medium
Many malicious programs have attempted to disable VirusScan by stopping services and processes and leaving the system vulnerable to attack. Self-protection is an important feature of VSE that prevents malicious programs from disabling VirusScan or any of its services or processes. Many trojans and viruses will attempt to terminate or even delete security products. VSE's self-protection features protect VirusScan registry values and processes from being altered or deleted by malicious code. This rule protects the McAfee security product from modification by any process not listed in the policy's exclusion list.
V-216952
medium
Many malicious programs have attempted to disable VirusScan by stopping services and processes and leaving the system vulnerable to attack. Self-protection is an important feature of VSE that prevents malicious programs from disabling VirusScan or any of its services or processes. Many trojans and viruses will attempt to terminate or even delete security products. VSE's self-protection features protect VirusScan registry values and processes from being altered or deleted by malicious code. This rule protects the McAfee security product from modification by any process not listed in the policy's exclusion list.
V-216953
medium
Many malicious programs have attempted to disable VirusScan by stopping services and processes and leaving the system vulnerable to attack. Self-protection is an important feature of VSE that prevents malicious programs from disabling VirusScan or any of its services or processes. Many trojans and viruses will attempt to terminate or even delete security products. VSE's self-protection features protect VirusScan registry values and processes from being altered or deleted by malicious code. This rule protects the McAfee security product from modification by any process not listed in the policy's exclusion list.
V-216954
medium
Many malicious programs have attempted to disable VirusScan by stopping services and processes and leaving the system vulnerable to attack. Self-protection is an important feature of VSE that prevents malicious programs from disabling VirusScan or any of its services or processes. Many trojans and viruses will attempt to terminate or even delete security products. VSE's self-protection features protect VirusScan registry values and processes from being altered or deleted by malicious code. This rule protects the McAfee security product from modification by any process not listed in the policy's exclusion list.
V-216955
medium
This rule will block common programs from running from the Temp directory; however, this rule is much more restrictive in that it stops nearly all processes from launching in the Temp folder. Most viruses need to be run once by a person before infecting a computer. This can be done in many ways, such as opening an executable attachment in an email or downloading a program from the Internet. An executable needs to exist on the disk before Windows can run it. A common way for applications to achieve this is to save the file in the user's or system's Temp directory and then run it. One purpose of this rule is to enforce advice that is frequently given to users: "don't open attachments from email." The other purpose of this rule is to close security holes introduced by application bugs. Older versions of Outlook and Internet Explorer are notorious for automatically executing code without the user needing to do anything but preview an email or view a website.
V-216956
medium
Hooking covers a range of techniques used to alter or augment the behavior of an operating system, of applications, or of other software components by intercepting function calls, messages, or events passed between software components. Code that handles such intercepted function calls, events, or messages is called a 'hook'. Hooking can also be used by malicious code. For example, rootkits, pieces of software that try to make themselves invisible by faking the output of API calls that would otherwise reveal their existence, often use hooking techniques. This rule prevents other processes from hooking of McAfee processes.
V-216957
medium
A common distribution method for adware and spyware is to have the user download an executable file and run it automatically from the Downloaded Program Files folder. This rule is specific to Microsoft Internet Explorer and prevents software installations through the web browser. Internet Explorer runs code from the Downloaded Program Files directory, notably ActiveX controls. Some vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and viruses place an .exe file into this directory and run it. This rule closes that attack vector.
V-216958
medium
This rule prevents the Windows scripting host from running VBScript and JavaScript scripts from the Temp directory. This would protect against a large number of trojans and questionable web installation mechanisms that are used by many adware and spyware applications.
V-216959
medium
Autorun files are used to automatically launch program files, typically setup files from CDs. Preventing other computers from making a connection and creating or altering autorun.inf files can prevent spyware and adware from being executed. There are many spyware and virus programs distributed on CDs.
V-216960
medium
Many viruses and worms find email addresses on the infected system and send themselves to these addresses. They do this by connecting directly to the email servers whose names they have harvested from the local system. This rule prevents any process from talking to a foreign email server using SMTP. By blocking this communication, a machine may become infected with a new mass mailing virus, but that virus will be unable to spread further by email. It prevents outbound access to SMTP ports 25 and 587 on all programs except known email clients listed as an exclusion.
V-216961
medium
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is the preferred communication method used by botnet herders and remote-access trojans to control botnets (a set of scripts or an independent program that connects to IRC). IRC allows an attacker to control infected machines that are sitting behind network address translation (NAT), and the bot can be configured to connect back to the command and control server listening on any port.
V-216962
medium
Many attackers use toolkits containing several different types of utilities and scripts that can be used to probe and attack hosts. Scripts are a common carrier of malware and none should be excluded from scanning. In the unlikely event that excluding scanning a script impacts the operational function and/or availability of a system, and reasonable mitigation efforts have been put into place, the exclusion may be put into place but must be documented with, and approved by, the ISSO/ISSM/DAA.
V-216963
medium
When scanning for malware, excluding specific files will increase the risk of a malware-infected file going undetected. By configuring antivirus software without any exclusions, the scanner has a higher success rate at detecting and eradicating malware.
V-216964
medium
A rootkit is a stealthy type of software, usually malicious, and is designed to mask the existence of processes or programs from normal methods of detection. Rootkits will often enable continued privileged access to a computer. Scanning and handling detection of rootkits will mitigate the likelihood of rootkits being installed and used maliciously on the system.
V-216965
medium
Malware may have infected a file that is necessary to the user. By configuring the antivirus software to first attempt cleaning the infected file, availability to the file is not sacrificed. If a cleaning attempt is not successful, however, deleting the file is the only safe option so as to ensure the malware is not introduced onto the system or network.
V-216966
medium
Antivirus software vendors use collective intelligence from sensors and cross-vector intelligence from web, email, and network threats to compile scores that reflect the likelihood of whether a file in question is malware. The collective intelligence is constantly being updated, more frequently than the typical daily antivirus signature files. With File Reputation lookup, a more real-time response to potential malicious code is realized than with the local-running antivirus software, since by querying the cloud-based database when a file appears to be suspicious, up-to-the-minute intelligence is provided. This type of protection reduces the threat protection time period from days to milliseconds, increases malware detection rates, and reduces downtime and remediation costs associated with malware attacks. Using File Reputation lookup is mandated by US CYBERCOM on DoD systems.
V-216967
medium
Email has become one of the most frequently used methods of spreading malware, through embedded HTML code and attachments. User awareness and training, warning users to not open suspicious emails or email attachments, and not clicking on hyperlinks, etc. from unknown or known senders, will not fully protect from email-borne malware. Mass mailing worms are similar to email-borne viruses, but are self-contained, rather than infecting an existing file. Protecting from email-borne viruses and mass mailing worms by scanning email upon delivery mitigates the risk of infection via email.
V-216968
medium
Log management is essential to ensuring that computer security records are stored in sufficient detail for an appropriate period of time. Routine log analysis is beneficial for identifying security incidents, policy violations, fraudulent activity, and operational problems. Logs are also useful when performing auditing and forensic analysis, supporting internal investigations, establishing baselines, and identifying operational trends and long-term problems.
V-216969
medium
Many attackers use toolkits containing several different types of utilities and scripts that can be used to probe and attack hosts. Scripts are a common carrier of malware and none should be excluded from scanning. In the unlikely event that excluding scanning a script impacts the operational function and/or availability of a system, and reasonable mitigation efforts have been put into place, the exclusion may be put into place but must be documented with, and approved by, the ISSO/ISSM/DAA.
V-216970
medium
Access Protection prevents unwanted changes to a computer by restricting access to specified ports, files and folders, shares, and registry keys and values. It prevents users from stopping McAfee processes and services, which are critical before and during outbreaks. Access Protection for VSE uses predefined and user-defined rules to strengthen systems against virus attacks. For instance, rules are used to specify which items can and cannot be accessed. Each rule can be configured to block and/or report access violations when they occur, and rules can also be disabled.
V-216971
medium
Email has become one of the most frequently used methods of spreading malware, through embedded HTML code and attachments. User awareness and training, warning users to not open suspicious emails or email attachments, and not clicking on hyperlinks, etc. from unknown or known senders, will not fully protect from email-borne malware. Mass mailing worms are similar to email-borne viruses, but are self-contained, rather than infecting an existing file. Protecting from email-borne viruses and mass mailing worms by scanning email upon delivery mitigates the risk of infection via email.
V-216972
medium
Email has become one of the most frequently used methods of spreading malware, through embedded HTML code and attachments. User awareness and training, warning users to not open suspicious emails or email attachments, and not clicking on hyperlinks, etc. from unknown or known senders, will not fully protect from email-borne malware. Mass mailing worms are similar to email-borne viruses, but are self-contained, rather than infecting an existing file. Protecting from email-borne viruses and mass mailing worms by scanning email upon delivery mitigates the risk of infection via email.
V-216973
medium
Malware may have infected a file that is necessary to the user. By configuring the antivirus software to first attempt cleaning the infected file, availability to the file is not sacrificed. If a cleaning attempt is not successful, however, deleting the file is the only safe option so as to ensure the malware is not introduced onto the system or network.
V-216974
medium
Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) include Spyware, Adware, Remote Administration Tools, Dialers, Password Crackers, Jokes, and Key Loggers. While PUPs do not typically have any infections capability on their own, they rely on malware or other attach mechanisms to be installed onto target hosts, after which they will collect and transfer data from the host to an external host and/or will be used as attach mechanisms. Configuring the antivirus software to attempt to clean the file first will allow for the possibility of a false positive. In most cases, however, the secondary action of delete will be used, mitigating the risk of the PUPs being installed and used maliciously.
V-216975
medium
Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) include Spyware, Adware, Remote Administration Tools, Dialers, Password Crackers, Jokes, and Key Loggers. While PUPs do not typically have any infections capability on their own, they rely on malware or other attach mechanisms to be installed onto target hosts, after which they will collect and transfer data from the host to an external host and/or will be used as attach mechanisms. Configuring the antivirus software to attempt to clean the file first will allow for the possibility of a false positive. In most cases, however, the secondary action of delete will be used, mitigating the risk of the PUPs being installed and used maliciously.
V-216976
medium
Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) include Spyware, Adware, Remote Administration Tools, Dialers, Password Crackers, Jokes, and Key Loggers. While PUPs do not typically have any infections capability on their own, they rely on malware or other attach mechanisms to be installed onto target hosts, after which they will collect and transfer data from the host to an external host and/or will be used as attach mechanisms. Configuring the antivirus software to attempt to clean the file first will allow for the possibility of a false positive. In most cases, however, the secondary action of delete will be used, mitigating the risk of the PUPs being installed and used maliciously.
V-216977
medium
This rule prevents all program from running files from the Temp directory. This would protect against a large number of trojans and questionable web installation mechanisms that are used by many adware and spyware applications.
V-251880
high
Security flaws with software applications are discovered daily. Vendors are constantly updating and patching their products to address newly discovered security vulnerabilities. Organizations (including any contractor to the organization) are required to promptly install security-relevant software updates (e.g., patches, service packs, and hot fixes). Flaws discovered during security assessments, continuous monitoring, incident response activities, or information system error handling must also be addressed expeditiously.
Organization-defined time periods for updating security-relevant software may vary based on a variety of factors including, for example, the security category of the information system or the criticality of the update (i.e., severity of the vulnerability related to the discovered flaw).
This requirement will apply to software patch management solutions that are used to install patches across the enclave and also to applications that are not part of that patch management solution. For example, many browsers today provide the capability to install their own patch software. Patch criticality, as well as system criticality, will vary. Therefore, the tactical situations regarding the patch management process will also vary. This means that the time period used must be a configurable parameter. Time frames for application of security-relevant software updates depend on the Information Assurance Vulnerability Management (IAVM) process.
The application will be configured to check for and install security-relevant software updates within an identified time period from the availability of the update. The specific time period will be defined by an authoritative source (e.g., IAVM, CTOs, DTMs, and STIGs).
Organization-defined time periods for updating security-relevant software may vary based on a variety of factors including, for example, the security category of the information system or the criticality of the update (i.e., severity of the vulnerability related to the discovered flaw).
This requirement will apply to software patch management solutions that are used to install patches across the enclave and also to applications that are not part of that patch management solution. For example, many browsers today provide the capability to install their own patch software. Patch criticality, as well as system criticality, will vary. Therefore, the tactical situations regarding the patch management process will also vary. This means that the time period used must be a configurable parameter. Time frames for application of security-relevant software updates depend on the Information Assurance Vulnerability Management (IAVM) process.
The application will be configured to check for and install security-relevant software updates within an identified time period from the availability of the update. The specific time period will be defined by an authoritative source (e.g., IAVM, CTOs, DTMs, and STIGs).