Detections
Analytics

SQL6-D0-015000 - SQL Server must generate audit records when unsuccessful attempts to execute privileged activities or other system-level access occur.

Information

Without tracking privileged activity, it would be difficult to establish, correlate, and investigate the events relating to an incident or identify those responsible for one.

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

A privileged function in this 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
DENY

Note that it is particularly important to audit, and tightly control, any action that weakens the implementation of this requirement itself, since the objective is to have a complete audit trail of all administrative activity.

To aid in diagnosis, it is necessary to keep track of failed attempts in addition to the successful ones.

Solution

Add the required events to the server audit specification
USE [master];
GO

ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION WITH (STATE = OFF);
GO

ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (APPLICATION_ROLE_CHANGE_PASSWORD_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (AUDIT_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (BACKUP_RESTORE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (DATABASE_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (DATABASE_OBJECT_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (DATABASE_OBJECT_OWNERSHIP_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (DATABASE_OBJECT_PERMISSION_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (DATABASE_OPERATION_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (DATABASE_OWNERSHIP_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (DATABASE_PERMISSION_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (DATABASE_PRINCIPAL_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (DATABASE_PRINCIPAL_IMPERSONATION_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (DATABASE_ROLE_MEMBER_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (DBCC_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (LOGIN_CHANGE_PASSWORD_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (LOGOUT_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (SCHEMA_OBJECT_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (SCHEMA_OBJECT_OWNERSHIP_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (SCHEMA_OBJECT_PERMISSION_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (SERVER_OBJECT_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (SERVER_OBJECT_OWNERSHIP_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (SERVER_OBJECT_PERMISSION_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (SERVER_OPERATION_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (SERVER_PERMISSION_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (SERVER_PRINCIPAL_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (SERVER_PRINCIPAL_IMPERSONATION_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (SERVER_ROLE_MEMBER_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (SERVER_STATE_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (TRACE_CHANGE_GROUP);
ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION ADD (USER_CHANGE_PASSWORD_GROUP);
GO

ALTER SERVER AUDIT SPECIFICATION STIG_AUDIT_SERVER_SPECIFICATION WITH (STATE = ON);
GO

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_MS_SQL_Server_2016_Y24M07_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: AUDIT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

References: 800-53|AU-12c., CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000172, Rule-ID|SV-214016r961827_rule, STIG-ID|SQL6-D0-015000, STIG-Legacy|SV-93999, STIG-Legacy|V-79293, Vuln-ID|V-214016

Plugin: MS_SQLDB

Control ID: c96c0458676fb9d382185eadbec6530692b45ebb88bd6ccb87683b10d6bb17d0