Title

Operating systems must prevent unauthorized and unintended information transfer via shared system resources. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Preventing unauthorized information transfers mitigates the risk of information, including encrypted representations of information, produced by the actions of prior users/roles (or the actions of processes acting on behalf of prior users/roles) from being available to any current users/roles (or current processes) that obtain access to shared system resources (e.g., registers, main memory, hard disks) after those resources have been released back to information systems. The control of information in shared resources is also commonly referred to as object reuse and residual information protection. This requirement generally applies to the design of an information technology product, but it can also apply to the configuration of particular information system components that are, or use, such products. This can be verified by acceptance/validation processes in DoD or other government agencies. There may be shared resources with configurable protections (e.g., files in storage) that may be assessed on specific information system components.

Check Content

Verify operating systems prevents unauthorized and unintended information transfer via shared system resources. If it does not, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure operating systems to prevent unauthorized and unintended information transfer via shared system resources.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-203657r557218_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-203657

Group Title: SRG-OS-000138

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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