PGS9-00-000200 - PostgreSQL must produce audit records containing sufficient information to establish the outcome (success or failure) of the events.

Information

Information system auditing capability is critical for accurate forensic analysis. Without information about the outcome of events, security personnel cannot make an accurate assessment as to whether an attack was successful or if changes were made to the security state of the system.

Event outcomes can include indicators of event success or failure and event-specific results (e.g., the security state of the information system after the event occurred). As such, they also provide a means to measure the impact of an event and help authorized personnel to determine the appropriate response.

Solution

Using pgaudit PostgreSQL can be configured to audit various facets of PostgreSQL. See supplementary content APPENDIX-B for documentation on installing pgaudit.

All errors, denials and unsuccessful requests are logged if logging is enabled. See supplementary content APPENDIX-C for documentation on enabling logging.

Note: The following instructions use the PGDATA and PGVER environment variables. See supplementary content APPENDIX-F for instructions on configuring PGDATA and APPENDIX-H for PGVER.

With pgaudit and logging enabled, set the following configuration settings in postgresql.conf, as the database administrator (shown here as 'postgres'), to the following:

$ sudo su - postgres
$ vi ${PGDATA?}/postgresql.conf
pgaudit.log_catalog='on'
pgaudit.log_level='log'
pgaudit.log_parameter='on'
pgaudit.log_statement_once='off'
pgaudit.log='all, -misc'

Next, tune the following logging configurations in postgresql.conf:

$ sudo su - postgres
$ vi ${PGDATA?}/postgresql.conf
log_line_prefix = '< %m %u %d %e: >'
log_error_verbosity = default

Last, as the system administrator, restart PostgreSQL:

# SYSTEMD SERVER ONLY
$ sudo systemctl reload postgresql-${PGVER?}

# INITD SERVER ONLY
$ sudo service postgresql-${PGVER?} reload

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_PGS_SQL_9-x_V2R5_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: AUDIT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

References: 800-53|AU-3, CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000134, Rule-ID|SV-214049r960903_rule, STIG-ID|PGS9-00-000200, STIG-Legacy|SV-87495, STIG-Legacy|V-72843, Vuln-ID|V-214049

Plugin: PostgreSQLDB

Control ID: a777d66cd3c6b826015a706e655de6ef4a64d9f73057757c57dac99d73e7e79a