Vulnerability Discussion

OL 8 systems handling data requiring "data-at-rest" protections must employ cryptographic mechanisms to prevent unauthorized disclosure and modification of the information at rest.

Selection of a cryptographic mechanism is based on the need to protect the integrity of organizational information. The strength of the mechanism is commensurate with the security category and/or classification of the information. Organizations have the flexibility to either encrypt all information on storage devices (i.e., full disk encryption) or encrypt specific data structures (e.g., files, records, or fields).

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000185-GPOS-00079, SRG-OS-000404-GPOS-00183, SRG-OS-000405-GPOS-00184

Check

Verify OL 8 prevents unauthorized disclosure or modification of all information requiring at rest protection by using disk encryption.

If there is a documented and approved reason for not having data-at-rest encryption, this requirement is not applicable.

Determine the partition layout for the system with the following command:

$ sudo lsblk

Verify all system partitions are encrypted with the following command:

$ sudo more /etc/crypttab

Every persistent disk partition present must have an entry in the file.

If any partitions other than pseudo file systems (such as "/proc" or "/sys") are not listed, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure OL 8 to prevent unauthorized modification of all information at rest by using disk encryption.

Encrypting a partition in an already-installed system is more difficult because existing partitions will need to be resized and changed.

To encrypt an entire partition, dedicate a partition for encryption in the partition layout.