Title

The NSX vCenter must terminate all network connections associated with a device management session at the end of the session, or the session must be terminated after 10 minutes of inactivity except to fulfill documented and validated mission requirements. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Terminating an idle session within a short time period reduces the window of opportunity for unauthorized personnel to take control of a management session enabled on the console or console port that has been left unattended. In addition, quickly terminating an idle session will also free up resources committed by the managed network element. Terminating network connections associated with communications sessions includes, for example, de-allocating associated TCP/IP address/port pairs at the operating system level, or de-allocating networking assignments at the application level if multiple application sessions are using a single, operating system-level network connection. This does not mean that the device terminates all sessions or network access; it only ends the inactive session and releases the resources associated with that session.

Check Content

Verify the vSphere Web Client sessions terminate after 10 minutes of idle time, requiring the user to log on again to resume using the client. You can view the timeout value by viewing the webclient.properties file. On the system where vCenter is installed, locate the webclient.properties file. Windows: C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenter Server\cfg\vsphere-client Find the session.timeout = line in the webclient.properties file. If the session timeout is not set to 10 in the webclient.properties file, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Change the timeout value by editing the webclient.properties file. On the system where vCenter is installed, locate the webclient.properties file. Windows: C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenter Server\cfg\vsphere-client Edit the file to include the line "session.timeout = 10" where 10 is the timeout value in minutes. Uncomment the line if necessary. After editing the file, the vSphere Web Client service must be restarted.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-83793r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-69189

Group Title: SRG-APP-000190-NDM-000267

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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