Title

Amazon Linux 2023 must immediately notify the system administrator (SA) and information system security officer (ISSO), at a minimum, of an audit processing failure event. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

It is critical for the appropriate personnel to be aware if a system is at risk of failing to process audit logs as required. Without this notification, the security personnel may be unaware of an impending failure of the audit capability, and system operation may be adversely affected. Audit processing failures include software/hardware errors, failures in the audit capturing mechanisms, and audit storage capacity being reached or exceeded. This requirement applies to each audit data storage repository (i.e., distinct information system component where audit records are stored), the centralized audit storage capacity of organizations (i.e., all audit data storage repositories combined), or both.

Check Content

Verify Amazon Linux 2023 is configured to notify the SA and/or ISSO (at a minimum) in the event of an audit processing failure with the following command: $ sudo grep action_mail_acct /etc/audit/auditd.conf action_mail_acct = root If the value of the "action_mail_acct" keyword is not set to "root" and/or other accounts for security personnel, the "action_mail_acct" keyword is missing, or the retuned line is commented out, ask the SA to indicate how they and the ISSO are notified of an audit process failure. If there is no evidence of the proper personnel being notified of an audit processing failure, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure Amazon Linux 2023 to that the auditd service notifies the SA and ISSO in the event of an audit processing failure. Edit the following line in "/etc/audit/auditd.conf" to ensure that administrators are notified via email for those situations: action_mail_acct = root The audit daemon must be restarted for changes to take effect.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-274075r1120700_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-274075

Group Title: SRG-OS-000343-GPOS-00134

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.