Title

PostgreSQL must produce audit records containing sufficient information to establish where the events occurred. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Information system auditing capability is critical for accurate forensic analysis. Without establishing where events occurred, it is impossible to establish, correlate, and investigate the events relating to an incident. In order to compile an accurate risk assessment and provide forensic analysis, it is essential for security personnel to know where events occurred, such as application components, modules, session identifiers, filenames, host names, and functionality. Associating information about where the event occurred within the application provides a means of investigating an attack; recognizing resource utilization or capacity thresholds; or identifying an improperly configured application.

Check Content

Note: The following instructions use the PGDATA environment variable. See supplementary content APPENDIX-F for instructions on configuring PGDATA. First, as the database administrator (shown here as "postgres"), check the current log_line_prefix setting by running the following SQL: $ sudo su - postgres $ psql -c "SHOW log_line_prefix" If log_line_prefix does not contain %m %u %d %s, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Note: The following instructions use the PGDATA environment variable. See supplementary content APPENDIX-F for instructions on configuring PGDATA. To check that logging is enabled, review supplementary content APPENDIX-C for instructions on enabling logging. First edit the postgresql.conf file as the database administrator (shown here as "postgres"): $ sudo su - postgres $ vi ${PGDATA?}/postgresql.conf Extra parameters can be added to the setting log_line_prefix to log application related information: # %a = application name # %u = user name # %d = database name # %r = remote host and port # %p = process ID # %m = timestamp with milliseconds # %i = command tag # %s = session startup # %e = SQL state For example: log_line_prefix = '< %m %a %u %d %r %p %i %e %s>’ Now, as the system administrator, reload the server with the new configuration: # SYSTEMD SERVER ONLY $ sudo systemctl reload postgresql-9.5 # INITD SERVER ONLY $ sudo service postgresql-9.5 reload

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-214112r879565_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-214112

Group Title: SRG-APP-000097-DB-000041

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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