2.3 Alter the Advertised server.built Date

Information

The server.built date represents the date which Tomcat was compiled and packaged. This value is presented to Tomcat clients when clients connect to the server.

Altering the server.built string may make it harder for attackers to fingerprint which vulnerabilities affect the server platform.

NOTE: Nessus has provided the target output to assist in reviewing the benchmark to ensure target compliance.

Solution

Perform the following to alter the server version string that gets displayed when clients connect to the server.

- Extract the ServerInfo.properties file from the catalina.jar file: $ cd $CATALINA_HOME/lib$ jar xf catalina.jar org/apache/catalina/util/ServerInfo.properties
- Navigate to the util directory that was created $ cd org/apache/Catalina/util
- Open ServerInfo.properties in an editor
- Update the server.built attribute in the ServerInfo.properties file. server.built=
- Update the catalina.jar with the modified ServerInfo.properties file. $ jar uf catalina.jar org/apache/catalina/util/ServerInfo.properties

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/15137

Item Details

Category: CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

References: 800-53|CM-6, 800-53|CM-7, CSCv7|13.2

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: d9c6d4be6463db39be3f87eccc71b47bbbf2534fd5402875d0f18f51ccb68e4f