Vulnerability Discussion

Configuring the operating system to implement organization-wide security implementation guides and security checklists ensures compliance with federal standards and establishes a common security baseline across DOD that reflects the most restrictive security posture consistent with operational requirements.

Configuration settings are the set of parameters that can be changed in hardware, software, or firmware components of the system that affect the security posture and/or functionality of the system. Security-related parameters are those parameters impacting the security state of the system, including the parameters required to satisfy other security control requirements. Security-related parameters include, for example: registry settings; account, file, directory permission settings; and settings for functions, ports, protocols, services, and remote connections.

Check

For systems that are not using smart card authentication, this requirements is not applicable.

Verify the macOS system is configured to require smart card authentication for the login command with the following command:

/bin/cat /etc/pam.d/login

If the text that returns does not include the line "auth sufficient pam_smartcard.so" at the TOP of the listing and "auth required pam_deny.so" as the last entry of the auth management group, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the macOS system to require smart card authentication for the login command with the following procedure:

/usr/bin/sudo /bin/cp /etc/pam.d/login /etc/pam.d/login_backup_`date "+%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M"`

Replace the contents of "/etc/pam.d/login" with the following:

# login: auth account password session
auth sufficient pam_smartcard.so
auth optional pam_krb5.so use_kcminit
auth optional pam_ntlm.so try_first_pass
auth optional pam_mount.so try_first_pass
auth required pam_opendirectory.so try_first_pass
auth required pam_deny.so
account required pam_nologin.so
account required pam_opendirectory.so
password required pam_opendirectory.so
session required pam_launchd.so
session required pam_uwtmp.so
session optional pam_mount.so