Title

The tuned package must not be installed unless mission essential on RHEL 8. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

It is detrimental for operating systems to provide, or install by default, functionality exceeding requirements or mission objectives. These unnecessary capabilities or services are often overlooked and therefore may remain unsecured. They increase the risk to the platform by providing additional attack vectors. Operating systems are capable of providing a wide variety of functions and services. Some of the functions and services, provided by default, may not be necessary to support essential organizational operations (e.g., key missions, functions). The tuned package contains a daemon that tunes the system settings dynamically. It does so by monitoring the usage of several system components periodically. Based on that information, components will then be put into lower or higher power savings modes to adapt to the current usage. The tuned package is not needed for normal OS operations.

Check Content

Verify the tuned package has not been installed on the system with the following commands: $ sudo yum list installed tuned tuned.noarch 2.12.0-3.el8 @anaconda If the tuned package is installed and is not documented with the Information System Security Officer (ISSO) as an operational requirement, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Document the tuned package with the ISSO as an operational requirement or remove it from the system with the following command: $ sudo yum remove tuned

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-230561r1017322_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-230561

Group Title: SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227

Expert Comments

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