Title

The macOS system must be configured to shut down upon audit failure. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

The audit service must be configured to shut down the computer if it is unable to audit system events. Once audit failure occurs, user and system activity are no longer recorded, and malicious activity could go undetected. Audit processing failures can occur due to software/hardware errors, failures in the audit capturing mechanisms, and audit storage capacity being reached or exceeded.

Check Content

Verify the macOS system is configured to shut down upon audit failure with the following command: /usr/bin/awk -F':' '/^policy/ {print $NF}' /etc/security/audit_control | /usr/bin/tr ',' '\n' | /usr/bin/grep -Ec 'ahlt' If the result is not "1", this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure the macOS system to shut down upon audit failure with the following command: /usr/bin/sed -i.bak 's/^policy.*/policy: ahlt,argv/' /etc/security/audit_control; /usr/sbin/audit -s

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-268455r1038966_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-268455

Group Title: SRG-OS-000047-GPOS-00023

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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