Detections
Analytics

EPAS-00-007400 - The EDB Postgres Advanced Server must prevent nonprivileged users from executing privileged functions to include disabling, circumventing, or altering implemented security safeguards/countermeasures.

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This audit has been deprecated and will be removed in a future update.

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Information

Preventing nonprivileged users from executing privileged functions mitigates the risk that unauthorized individuals or processes may gain unnecessary access to information or privileges.

System documentation should include a definition of the functionality considered privileged.

Depending on circumstances, privileged functions can include, for example, establishing accounts, performing system integrity checks, or administering cryptographic key management activities. Nonprivileged users are individuals that do not possess appropriate authorizations. Circumventing intrusion detection and prevention mechanisms or malicious code protection mechanisms are examples of privileged functions that require protection from nonprivileged users.

A privileged function in the DBMS/database context is any operation that modifies the structure of the database, its built-in logic, or its security settings. This would include all Data Definition Language (DDL) statements and all security-related statements. In an SQL environment, it encompasses, but is not necessarily limited to:

CREATE
ALTER
DROP
GRANT
REVOKE

There may also be Data Manipulation Language (DML) statements that, subject to context, should be regarded as privileged. Possible examples include:

TRUNCATE TABLE;
DELETE, or
DELETE affecting more than n rows, for some n, or
DELETE without a WHERE clause;

UPDATE or
UPDATE affecting more than n rows, for some n, or
UPDATE without a WHERE clause;

any SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE to an application-defined security table executed by other than a security principal.

Depending on the capabilities of the DBMS and the design of the database and associated applications, the prevention of unauthorized use of privileged functions may be achieved by means of DBMS security features, database triggers, other mechanisms, or a combination of these.

NOTE: Nessus has not performed this check. Please review the benchmark to ensure target compliance.

Solution

Revoke any privileges to privileged functionality by executing the REVOKE command as documented here:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/sql-revoke.html

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_EPAS_V1R1_STIG.zip

Item Details

References: CAT|II, CCI|CCI-002235, Rule-ID|SV-259273r938872_rule, STIG-ID|EPAS-00-007400, Vuln-ID|V-259273

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 54c8f4a049bc06104e79e7299e104662a8460c890ab3ce766edb4f0c068415a7