Description
The auditd service is an essential userspace component of
the Linux Auditing System, as it is responsible for writing audit records to
disk.
The auditd service can be enabled with the following command:
$ sudo systemctl enable auditd.service
Rationale
Without establishing what type of events occurred, it would be difficult
to establish, correlate, and investigate the events leading up to an outage or attack.
Ensuring the auditd service is active ensures audit records
generated by the kernel are appropriately recorded.
Additionally, a properly configured audit subsystem ensures that actions of
individual system users can be uniquely traced to those users so they
can be held accountable for their actions.
Shell script
The following script can be run on the host to remediate the issue.
#!/bin/bash
# Remediation is applicable only in certain platforms
if [ ! -f /.dockerenv ] && [ ! -f /run/.containerenv ] && { dpkg-query --show --showformat='${db:Status-Status}\n' 'auditd' 2>/dev/null | grep -q installed; }; then
SYSTEMCTL_EXEC='/usr/bin/systemctl'
"$SYSTEMCTL_EXEC" unmask 'auditd.service'
"$SYSTEMCTL_EXEC" start 'auditd.service'
"$SYSTEMCTL_EXEC" enable 'auditd.service'
else
>&2 echo 'Remediation is not applicable, nothing was done'
fi
Ansible playbook
The following playbook can be run with Ansible to remediate the issue.
- name: Gather the package facts
package_facts:
manager: auto
tags:
- CJIS-5.4.1.1
- DISA-STIG-UBTU-20-010182
- NIST-800-171-3.3.1
- NIST-800-171-3.3.2
- NIST-800-171-3.3.6
- NIST-800-53-AC-2(g)
- NIST-800-53-AC-6(9)
- NIST-800-53-AU-10
- NIST-800-53-AU-12(c)
- NIST-800-53-AU-14(1)
- NIST-800-53-AU-2(d)
- NIST-800-53-AU-3
- NIST-800-53-CM-6(a)
- NIST-800-53-SI-4(23)
- PCI-DSS-Req-10.1
- PCI-DSSv4-10.2.1
- enable_strategy
- low_complexity
- low_disruption
- medium_severity
- no_reboot_needed
- service_auditd_enabled
- name: Enable service auditd
block:
- name: Gather the package facts
package_facts:
manager: auto
- name: Enable service auditd
systemd:
name: auditd
enabled: 'yes'
state: started
masked: 'no'
when:
- '"auditd" in ansible_facts.packages'
when:
- ansible_virtualization_type not in ["docker", "lxc", "openvz", "podman", "container"]
- '"auditd" in ansible_facts.packages'
tags:
- CJIS-5.4.1.1
- DISA-STIG-UBTU-20-010182
- NIST-800-171-3.3.1
- NIST-800-171-3.3.2
- NIST-800-171-3.3.6
- NIST-800-53-AC-2(g)
- NIST-800-53-AC-6(9)
- NIST-800-53-AU-10
- NIST-800-53-AU-12(c)
- NIST-800-53-AU-14(1)
- NIST-800-53-AU-2(d)
- NIST-800-53-AU-3
- NIST-800-53-CM-6(a)
- NIST-800-53-SI-4(23)
- PCI-DSS-Req-10.1
- PCI-DSSv4-10.2.1
- enable_strategy
- low_complexity
- low_disruption
- medium_severity
- no_reboot_needed
- service_auditd_enabled
