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Objective ID
Severity
Discussion
medium
Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks.
To meet password policy requirements, passwords need to be changed at specific policy-based intervals.
If the information system or application allows the user to consecutively reuse their password when that password has exceeded its defined lifetime, the end result is a password that is not changed as per policy requirements.
To meet password policy requirements, passwords need to be changed at specific policy-based intervals.
If the information system or application allows the user to consecutively reuse their password when that password has exceeded its defined lifetime, the end result is a password that is not changed as per policy requirements.
medium
Terminating an idle session within a short time period reduces the window of opportunity for unauthorized personnel to take control of a management session enabled on the console or console port that has been left unattended. In addition, quickly terminating an idle session will also free up resources committed by the managed network element. Automatic client session refreshes keep unused sessions online, blocking session timeouts.
medium
Any password, no matter how complex, can eventually be cracked. Therefore, passwords need to be changed at specific intervals.
One method of minimizing this risk is to use complex passwords and periodically change them. If the application does not limit the lifetime of passwords and force users to change their passwords, there is the risk that the system and/or application passwords could be compromised.
This requirement does not include emergency administration accounts which are meant for access to the application in case of failure. These accounts are not required to have maximum password lifetime restrictions.
One method of minimizing this risk is to use complex passwords and periodically change them. If the application does not limit the lifetime of passwords and force users to change their passwords, there is the risk that the system and/or application passwords could be compromised.
This requirement does not include emergency administration accounts which are meant for access to the application in case of failure. These accounts are not required to have maximum password lifetime restrictions.
medium
Terminating an idle session within a short time period reduces the window of opportunity for unauthorized personnel to take control of a management session enabled on the console or console port that has been left unattended. In addition, quickly terminating an idle session will also free up resources committed by the managed network element.
Terminating network connections associated with communications sessions includes, for example, de-allocating associated TCP/IP address/port pairs at the operating system level, or de-allocating networking assignments at the application level if multiple application sessions are using a single, operating system level network connection. This does not mean that the application terminates all sessions or network access; it only ends the inactive session and releases the resources associated with that session.
Terminating network connections associated with communications sessions includes, for example, de-allocating associated TCP/IP address/port pairs at the operating system level, or de-allocating networking assignments at the application level if multiple application sessions are using a single, operating system level network connection. This does not mean that the application terminates all sessions or network access; it only ends the inactive session and releases the resources associated with that session.
medium
Users and service accounts must only be assigned privileges they require. Least Privilege requires that these privileges must only be assigned if needed, to reduce risk of confidentiality, availability or integrity loss.
medium
DoS is a condition when a resource is not available for legitimate users. When this occurs, the organization either cannot accomplish its mission or must operate at degraded capacity.
Managing excess capacity ensures that sufficient capacity is available to counter flooding attacks. Employing increased capacity and service redundancy may reduce the susceptibility to some DoS attacks. Managing excess capacity may include, for example, establishing selected usage priorities, quotas, or partitioning.
Managing excess capacity ensures that sufficient capacity is available to counter flooding attacks. Employing increased capacity and service redundancy may reduce the susceptibility to some DoS attacks. Managing excess capacity may include, for example, establishing selected usage priorities, quotas, or partitioning.
low
It is critical for the appropriate personnel to be aware if an ESXi host is at risk of failing to process audit logs as required. Without a real-time alert, security personnel may be unaware of an impending failure of the audit capability, and system operation may be adversely affected.
To ensure the appropriate personnel are alerted if an audit failure occurs a vCenter alarm can be created to trigger when an ESXi host can no longer reach its syslog server.
To ensure the appropriate personnel are alerted if an audit failure occurs a vCenter alarm can be created to trigger when an ESXi host can no longer reach its syslog server.
medium
The vCenter Server for Windows must ensure users are authenticated with an individual authenticator prior to using a group authenticator. Using Active Directory for authentication provides more robust account management capabilities.
medium
Use of the SSO administrator account should be limited as it is a shared account and individual accounts must be used wherever possible.
low
Network Healthcheck is disabled by default. Once enabled, the healthcheck packets contain information on host#, vds#, port#, which an attacker would find useful. It is recommended that network healthcheck be used for troubleshooting, and turned off when troubleshooting is finished.
medium
If the virtual machine operating system changes the MAC address, the operating system can send frames with an impersonated source MAC address at any time. This allows an operating system to stage malicious attacks on the devices in a network by impersonating a network adaptor authorized by the receiving network.
When the Forged transmits option is set to Accept, ESXi does not compare source and effective MAC addresses.
To protect against MAC impersonation, you can set the Forged transmits option to Reject. If you do, the host compares the source MAC address being transmitted by the guest operating system with the effective MAC address for its virtual machine adapter to see if they match. If the addresses do not match, the ESXi host drops the packet.
When the Forged transmits option is set to Accept, ESXi does not compare source and effective MAC addresses.
To protect against MAC impersonation, you can set the Forged transmits option to Reject. If you do, the host compares the source MAC address being transmitted by the guest operating system with the effective MAC address for its virtual machine adapter to see if they match. If the addresses do not match, the ESXi host drops the packet.
high
If the virtual machine operating system changes the MAC address, it can send frames with an impersonated source MAC address at any time. This allows it to stage malicious attacks on the devices in a network by impersonating a network adaptor authorized by the receiving network. This will prevent VMs from changing their effective MAC address. It will affect applications that require this functionality. This will also affect how a layer 2 bridge will operate. This will also affect applications that require a specific MAC address for licensing.
medium
When promiscuous mode is enabled for a virtual switch all virtual machines connected to the Portgroup have the potential of reading all packets across that network, meaning only the virtual machines connected to that Portgroup. Promiscuous mode is disabled by default on the ESXi Server, and this is the recommended setting.
medium
The distributed virtual switch can export NetFlow information about traffic crossing the switch. NetFlow exports are not encrypted and can contain information about the virtual network making it easier for a MitM attack to be executed successfully. If NetFlow export is required, verify that all NetFlow target IP's are correct.
low
Port-level configuration overrides are disabled by default. Once enabled, this allows for different security settings to be set from what is established at the Port-Group level. There are cases where particular VMs require unique configurations, but this should be monitored so it is only used when authorized. If overrides are not monitored, anyone who gains access to a VM with a less secure VDS configuration could surreptitiously exploit that broader access.
medium
ESXi does not use the concept of native VLAN. Frames with VLAN specified in the port group will have a tag, but frames with VLAN not specified in the port group are not tagged and therefore will end up as belonging to native VLAN of the physical switch. For example, frames on VLAN 1 from a Cisco physical switch will be untagged, because this is considered as the native VLAN. However, frames from ESXi specified as VLAN 1 will be tagged with a "1"; therefore, traffic from ESXi that is destined for the native VLAN will not be correctly routed (because it is tagged with a "1" instead of being untagged), and traffic from the physical switch coming from the native VLAN will not be visible (because it is not tagged). If the ESXi virtual switch port group uses the native VLAN ID, traffic from those VMs will not be visible to the native VLAN on the switch, because the switch is expecting untagged traffic.
medium
When a port group is set to VLAN 4095, this activates VGT mode. In this mode, the vSwitch passes all network frames to the guest VM without modifying the VLAN tags, leaving it up to the guest to deal with them. VLAN 4095 should be used only if the guest has been specifically configured to manage VLAN tags itself. If VGT is enabled inappropriately, it might cause denial-of-service or allow a guest VM to interact with traffic on an unauthorized VLAN.
medium
Certain physical switches reserve certain VLAN IDs for internal purposes and often disallow traffic configured to these values. For example, Cisco Catalyst switches typically reserve VLANs 1001–1024 and 4094, while Nexus switches typically reserve 3968–4047 and 4094. Check with the documentation for your specific switch. Using a reserved VLAN might result in a denial of service on the network.
medium
NFC is the mechanism used to migrate or clone a VM between two ESXi hosts over the network. By default, NFC over SSL is enabled (i.e., "True") within a vSphere cluster but the value of the setting is null. Clients check the value of the setting and default to not using SSL for performance reasons if the value is null. This behavior can be changed by ensuring the setting has been explicitly created and set to "True". This will force clients to use SSL. Without this setting VM contents could potentially be sniffed if the management network is not adequately isolated and secured.
medium
You can use the Microsoft Windows built-in system account or a domain user account to run vCenter Server. The Microsoft Windows built-in system account has more permissions and rights on the server than the vCenter Server system requires, which can contribute to security problems. With a domain user account, you can enable Windows authentication for SQL Server; it also allows more granular security and logging. The installing account only needs to be a member of the Administrators group, and have permission to act as part of the operating system and log on as a service. If you are using SQL Server for the vCenter database, you must configure the SQL Server database to allow the domain account access to SQL Server.
medium
By default, the vpxuser password will be automatically changed by vCenter every 30 days. Ensure this setting meets your policies; if not, configure to meet password aging policies.
Note: It is very important the password aging policy not be shorter than the default interval that is set to automatically change the vpxuser password, to preclude the possibility that vCenter might get locked out of an ESXi host.
Note: It is very important the password aging policy not be shorter than the default interval that is set to automatically change the vpxuser password, to preclude the possibility that vCenter might get locked out of an ESXi host.
medium
The vpxuser password default length is 32 characters. Ensure this setting meets site policies; if not, configure to meet password length policies. Longer passwords make brute-force password attacks more difficult. The vpxuser password is added by vCenter, meaning no manual intervention is normally required. The vpxuser password length must never be modified to less than the default length of 32 characters.
low
The managed object browser provides a way to explore the object model used by the vCenter to manage the vSphere environment; it enables configurations to be changed as well. This interface is used primarily for debugging, and might potentially be used to perform malicious configuration changes or actions.
medium
Check for privilege reassignment when you restart vCenter Server. If the user or user group that is assigned the Administrator role on the root folder cannot be verified as a valid user or group during a restart, the role is removed from that user or group. In its place, vCenter Server grants the Administrator role to the vCenter Single Sign-On account administrator@vsphere.local. This account can then act as the administrator.
Reestablish a named administrator account and assign the Administrator role to that account to avoid using the anonymous administrator@vsphere.local account.
Reestablish a named administrator account and assign the Administrator role to that account to avoid using the anonymous administrator@vsphere.local account.
high
After someone has logged in to the vCenter Server system, it becomes more difficult to prevent what they can do. In general, logging in to the vCenter Server system should be limited to very privileged administrators, and then only for the purpose of administering vCenter Server or the host OS. Anyone logged in to the vCenter Server can potentially cause harm, either intentionally or unintentionally, by altering settings and modifying processes. They also have potential access to vCenter credentials, such as the SSL certificate.
medium
In certain cases, if the vCenter installation fails, a log file (with a name of the form "hs_err_pidXXXX") is created that contains the database password in plain text. An attacker who breaks into the vCenter Server could potentially steal this password and access the vCenter Database.
medium
By default not all tasks are shown in the web client to administrators and only that user's tasks will be shown. Enabling all tasks to be shown will allow the administrator to potentially see any malicious activity they may miss with the view disabled.
medium
By default, vCenter Server grants full administrative rights to the local administrator's account, which can be accessed by domain administrators. Separation of duties dictates that full vCenter Administrative rights should be granted only to those administrators who are required to have it. This privilege should not be granted to any group whose membership is not strictly controlled. Therefore, administrative rights should be removed from the local Windows server to users who are not vCenter administrators.
low
The Update Manager Download Service (UMDS) is an optional module of the Update Manager. UMDS downloads upgrades for virtual appliances, patch metadata, patch binaries, and notifications that would not otherwise be available to the Update Manager server. For security reasons and deployment restrictions, the Update Manager must be installed in a secured network that is disconnected from the Internet. The Update Manager requires access to patch information to function properly. UMDS must be installed on a separate system that has Internet access to download upgrades, patch binaries, and patch metadata, and then export the downloads to a portable media drive so that they become accessible to the Update Manager server.
medium
Least-privileges mitigate attacks if the Update Manager database account is compromised. The VMware Update Manager requires certain privileges for the database user in order to install, and the installer will automatically check for these. The privileges on the VUM database user must be reduced for normal operation.
medium
Least-privileges mitigates attacks if the vCenter database account is compromised. vCenter requires very specific privileges on the database. Privileges normally required only for installation and upgrade must be removed for/during normal operation. These privileges may be reinstated if/when any future upgrade must be performed.
medium
In order to not violate non-repudiation (i.e., deny the authenticity of who is connecting to vCenter), when applications need to connect to vCenter they should use unique service accounts.
medium
The vCenter Server includes a vSphere Client extensibility framework, which provides the ability to extend the vSphere Client with menu selections or toolbar icons that provide access to vCenter Server add-on components or external, Web-based functionality. vSphere Client plugins or extensions run at the same privilege level as the user. Malicious extensions might masquerade as useful add-ons while compromising the system by stealing credentials or incorrectly configuring the system.
low
Without establishing what types of events occurred, it would be difficult to establish, correlate, and investigate the events leading up to an outage or attack.
medium
The shorter the password, the lower the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised.
Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks. Password length is one factor of several that helps to determine strength and how long it takes to crack a password. The shorter the password, the lower the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised.
Use of more characters in a password helps to exponentially increase the time and/or resources required to compromise the password.
Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks. Password length is one factor of several that helps to determine strength and how long it takes to crack a password. The shorter the password, the lower the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised.
Use of more characters in a password helps to exponentially increase the time and/or resources required to compromise the password.
medium
To enforce the use of complex passwords, minimum numbers of characters of different classes are mandated. The use of complex passwords reduces the ability of attackers to successfully obtain valid passwords using guessing or exhaustive search techniques. Complexity requirements increase the password search space by requiring users to construct passwords from a larger character set than they may otherwise use.
medium
To enforce the use of complex passwords, minimum numbers of characters of different classes are mandated. The use of complex passwords reduces the ability of attackers to successfully obtain valid passwords using guessing or exhaustive search techniques. Complexity requirements increase the password search space by requiring users to construct passwords from a larger character set than they may otherwise use.
medium
To enforce the use of complex passwords, minimum numbers of characters of different classes are mandated. The use of complex passwords reduces the ability of attackers to successfully obtain valid passwords using guessing or exhaustive search techniques. Complexity requirements increase the password search space by requiring users to construct passwords from a larger character set than they may otherwise use.
medium
To enforce the use of complex passwords, minimum numbers of characters of different classes are mandated. The use of complex passwords reduces the ability of attackers to successfully obtain valid passwords using guessing or exhaustive search techniques. Complexity requirements increase the password search space by requiring users to construct passwords from a larger character set than they may otherwise use.
medium
By limiting the number of failed login attempts, the risk of unauthorized access via user password guessing, otherwise known as brute-forcing, is reduced. Limits are imposed by locking the account.
medium
By limiting the number of failed login attempts, the risk of unauthorized access via user password guessing, otherwise known as brute-forcing, is reduced. Limits are imposed by locking the account.
medium
By limiting the number of failed login attempts, the risk of unauthorized access via user password guessing, otherwise known as brute-forcing, is reduced. Limits are imposed by locking the account.
medium
If personnel are not notified of permission events, they will not be aware of possible unsecure situations.
medium
If personnel are not notified of permission events, they will not be aware of possible unsecure situations.
medium
If personnel are not notified of permission events, they will not be aware of possible unsecure situations.
medium
Users and service accounts must only be assigned privileges they require. Least Privilege requires that these privileges must only be assigned if needed, to reduce risk of confidentiality, availability or integrity loss.
medium
Virtual machines might share virtual switches and VLANs with the IP-based storage configurations. IP-based storage includes vSAN, iSCSI, and NFS. This configuration might expose IP-based storage traffic to unauthorized virtual machine users. IP-based storage frequently is not encrypted. It can be viewed by anyone with access to this network. To restrict unauthorized users from viewing the IP-based storage traffic, the IP-based storage network must be logically separated from the production traffic. Configuring the IP-based storage adaptors on separate VLANs or network segments from other VMkernels and Virtual Machines will limit unauthorized users from viewing the traffic.
medium
The vSAN Health Check is used for additional alerting capabilities, performance stress testing prior to production usage, and verifying that the underlying hardware officially is supported by being in compliance with the vSAN Hardware Compatibility Guide
medium
The vSAN Health Check is able to download the hardware compatibility list from VMware in order to check compliance against the underlying vSAN Cluster hosts. To ensure the vCenter server is not directly downloading content from the internet this functionality must be disabled or if this feature is necessary an external proxy server must be configured.
medium
A vSAN Datastore name by default is "vsanDatastore". If more than one vSAN cluster is present in vCenter both datastores will have the same name by default, potentially leading to confusion and manually misplaced workloads.
medium
Users and service accounts must only be assigned privileges they require. Least Privilege requires that these privileges must only be assigned if needed, to reduce risk of confidentiality, availability or integrity loss.
medium
TLS 1.0 and 1.1 are deprecated protocols with well published shortcomings and vulnerabilities. TLS 1.2 should be disabled on all interfaces and TLS 1.1 and 1.0 disabled where supported. Mandating TLS 1.2 may break third party integrations and add-ons to vSphere. Test these integrations carefully after implementing TLS 1.2 and roll back where appropriate. On interfaces where required functionality is broken with TLS 1.2 this finding is N/A until such time as the third party software supports TLS 1.2.
Make sure you modify TLS settings in the following order: 1. Platform Services Controls (if applicable), 2. vCenter, 3. ESXi
Make sure you modify TLS settings in the following order: 1. Platform Services Controls (if applicable), 2. vCenter, 3. ESXi
medium
The default self-signed, VMCA issued vCenter reverse proxy certificate must be replaced with a DoD approved certificate. The use of a DoD certificate on the vCenter reverse proxy assures clients that the service they are connecting to is legitimate and properly secured.
medium
The vCenter 6.5 Web Client portal is capable of CAC authentication. This capability must be enabled and properly configured.
medium
The system must establish the validity of the user supplied identity certificate using OCSP and/or CRL revocation checking.
low
All forms of authentication other than CAC must be disabled. Password authentication can be temporarily re-enabled for emergency access to the local SSO domain accounts but it must be disable as soon as CAC authentication is functional.
medium
vSphere 6.5 modifies the built-in "Administrator" role to add permission to perform cryptographic operations such as KMS operations and encrypting and decrypting virtual machine disks. This role must be reserved for cryptographic administrators where VM encryption and/or vSAN encryption is in use. A new built-in role called "No Cryptography Administrator" has been added to provide all administrative permissions except cryptographic operations. Permissions must be restricted such that normal vSphere administrators are assigned the "No Cryptography Administrator" role or more restrictive. The "Administrator" role must be tightly controlled and must not be applied to administrators who will not be doing cryptographic work. Catastrophic data loss can result from a poorly administered cryptography.
medium
These permissions must be reserved for cryptographic administrators where VM encryption and/or vSAN encryption is in use. Catastrophic data loss can result from a poorly administered cryptography.
low
When enabled vSphere performs bidirectional authentication of both the iSCSI target and host. There is a potential for a MitM attack when not authenticating both the iSCSI target and host in which an attacker might impersonate either side of the connection to steal data. Bidirectional authentication mitigates this risk.
low
The Key Encryption Key (KEK) for a vSAN encrypted datastore is generated by the Key Management Server (KMS) and serves as a wrapper and lock around the Disk Encryption Key (DEK). The DEK is generated by the host and is used to encrypt and decrypt the datastore. A shallow re-key is a procedure in which the KMS issues a new KEK to the ESXi host which re-wraps the DEK but does not change the DEK or any data on disk. This operation must be done on a regular, site defined interval and can be viewed as similar in criticality to changing an administrative password. Should the KMS itself somehow be compromised, a standing operational procedure to re-key will put a time limit on the usefulness of any stolen KMS data.
low
The VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) sends VMware anonymized system information that is used to improve the quality, reliability, and functionality of VMware products and services. For confidentiality purposes this feature must be disabled.
medium
LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is an industry standard protocol for querying directory services such as Active Directory. This protocol can operate in clear text or over an SSL/TLS encrypted tunnel. To protect confidentiality of LDAP communications the LDAPS option must be selected when adding an LDAP identity source in vSphere SSO.
medium
When adding an LDAP identity source to vSphere SSO the account used to bind to AD must be minimally privileged. This account only requires read rights to the base DN specified. Any other permissions inside or outside of that OU are unnecessary and violate least privilege.
medium
SNMPv3 supports commercial-grade security, including authentication, authorization, access control, and privacy while previous versions of the protocol contained well-known security weaknesses that were easily exploited. SNMPv3 can be configured for identification and cryptographically based authentication.
SNMPv3 is not supported in vCenter Server for Windows.
SNMPv3 is not supported in vCenter Server for Windows.
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 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 the time period used must be a configurable parameter. Time frames for application of security-relevant software updates may be dependent upon 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 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 the time period used must be a configurable parameter. Time frames for application of security-relevant software updates may be dependent upon 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).