UBTU-20-010117 - The Ubuntu operating system must alert the ISSO and SA (at a minimum) in the event of an audit processing failure.

Information

It is critical for the appropriate personnel to be aware if a system is at risk of failing to process audit logs as required. Without this notification, the security personnel may be unaware of an impending failure of the audit capability, and system operation may be adversely affected.

Audit processing failures include software/hardware errors, failures in the audit capturing mechanisms, and audit storage capacity being reached or exceeded.

This requirement applies to each audit data storage repository (i.e., distinct information system component where audit records are stored), the centralized audit storage capacity of organizations (i.e., all audit data storage repositories combined), or both.

Solution

Configure 'auditd' service to notify the SA and ISSO in the event of an audit processing failure.

Edit the following line in '/etc/audit/auditd.conf' to ensure administrators are notified via email for those situations:

action_mail_acct = <administrator_account>

Note: Change 'administrator_account' to an account for security personnel.

Restart the 'auditd' service so the changes take effect:

$ sudo systemctl restart auditd.service

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_CAN_Ubuntu_20-04_LTS_V2R1_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: AUDIT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

References: 800-53|AU-5a., CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000139, Rule-ID|SV-238243r958424_rule, STIG-ID|UBTU-20-010117, Vuln-ID|V-238243

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 73309e7bdfd59741a95538f5d147d49695261403ccdab12afd34b8adcd85466f