AOSX-14-002069 - The macOS system must authenticate peripherals before establishing a connection.

Information

Without authenticating devices, unidentified or unknown devices may be introduced, thereby facilitating malicious activity.

Peripherals include, but are not limited to, such devices as flash drives, external storage, and printers.

Solution

To ensure that authentication is required to access all system level preference panes use the following procedure:

Copy the authorization database to a file using the following command:
/usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/security authorizationdb read system.preferences > ~/Desktop/authdb.txt

Edit the file to change:
<key>shared</key>
<true/>

To read:
<key>shared</key>
<false/>

Reload the authorization database with the following command:
/usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/security authorizationdb write system.preferences < ~/Desktop/authdb.txt

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_Apple_OS_X_10-14_V2R6_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-3, CAT|II, CCI|CCI-001958, Rule-ID|SV-234699r615888_rule, STIG-ID|AOSX-14-002069, STIG-Legacy|SV-104725, STIG-Legacy|V-95541, Vuln-ID|V-234699

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 916366c9be4bd1c8e4e4150c487a2d988635c47e076c9d2f794ac9373cd8614b