Title

NixOS must manage excess capacity, bandwidth, or other redundancy to limit the effects of information flooding types of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

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.

Check Content

Verify NixOS is configured to use IPv4 TCP syncookies with the following command: $ sudo sysctl net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies = 1 If the network parameter "ipv4.tcp_syncookies" is not equal to "1" or nothing is returned, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure NixOS to use IPv4 TCP syncookies by editing the following in the NixOS configuration /etc/nixos/configuration.nix: boot.kernel.sysctl = { "net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies"=1; }; Rebuild the NixOS configuration with the following command: $ sudo nixos-rebuild switch

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-268141r1039311_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-268141

Group Title: SRG-OS-000142-GPOS-00071

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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