Information
Once an attacker establishes access to a system, the attacker often attempts to create a persistent method of reestablishing access. One way to accomplish this is for the attacker to modify an existing account. Auditing account modification actions provides logging that can be used for forensic purposes.
To address access requirements, many operating systems can be integrated with enterprise-level authentication/access/auditing mechanisms that meet or exceed access control policy requirements.
Solution
Navigate to and open:
/etc/audit/rules.d/audit.STIG.rules
Add or update the following lines:
-w /usr/sbin/usermod -p x -k usermod
-w /usr/sbin/groupmod -p x -k groupmod
At the command line, run the following command to load the new audit rules:
# /sbin/augenrules --load
Note: An "audit.STIG.rules" file is provided with this guidance for placement in "/etc/audit/rules.d" that contains all rules needed for auditd.
Note: An older "audit.STIG.rules" may exist and may reference older "GEN" SRG IDs. This file can be removed and replaced as necessary with an updated one.