1.2 Do Not Install a Multi-Use System - chkconfig

Information

Default server configurations often expose a wide variety of services unnecessarily increasing the risk to the system. Just because a server can perform many services doesn't mean it is wise to do so. The number of services and daemons executing on the ISC BIND DNS server should be limited to those necessary, with the DNS service being the only primary function of the server.

Rationale:

Maintaining a server for a single purpose increases the security of your system. The more services which are exposed to an attacker, the more potential vectors an attacker has to exploit the system and therefore the higher the risk for the server. A DNS server should function as only a name server and should not be mixed with other primary functions such as email, web, or database.

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

Solution

Disable all unnecessary services or move necessary primary services other than DNS to another server. Leverage the package or services manager for your OS to uninstall or disable unneeded services. On Red Hat systems, the following commands may be used to uninstall a package or disable a service:

# yum erase <package name>
# systemctl disable <service name>

Default Value:

Depends on the platform

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/2997

Item Details

Category: CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

References: 800-53|CM-7b., CSCv6|9.5, CSCv7|9

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: db22103a14c67563474e42bb7762cd253881bb4f89540c10df89c7465b047b49