CIS-CAT integration

What is CIS-CAT

CIS (Center for Internet Security) is an entity dedicated to safeguarding private and public organizations against cyber threats. This entity provides CIS benchmarks guidelines, which are a recognized global standard and best practices for securing IT systems and data against cyberattacks.

In addition, CIS-CAT Pro is a "cross-platform Java app" tool developed for scanning target systems and generating a report comparing the system settings to the CIS benchmarks. There are more than 80 CIS benchmarks that cover nearly all OSs, providing different profiles depending on the specific need. CIS-CAT Pro includes CIS-CAT Pro v3 and CIS-CAT Pro v4. Now ThreatLockDown supports both CIS-CAT Pro v3 and v4, see Use case: Running a CIS evaluation for more details.

How it works

The CIS-CAT ThreatLockDown module integrates CIS benchmark assessments into ThreatLockDown agents and reports the results of each scan in the form of an alert.

CIS-CAT Pro is written in Java, so it requires a Java Runtime Environment in order to execute it. Currently, the JRE versions supported in CIS-CAT are JRE 6, 7, and 8. Follow these steps to install the OpenJDK platform:

# yum install java-1.8.0-openjdk

# apt-get update && apt-get install openjdk-8-jre

For running this integration, the CIS-CAT tool must reside on the local agent that runs the scans. However, the JRE can be located on a removable disk or network drive for the purpose of sharing between multiple agents.

In addition, in Unix systems, the CIS-CAT script may need to be granted execute permissions. To do this, run the following command from the CIS-CAT Pro v3 directory:

# chmod +x CIS-CAT.sh

or run the following command from the CIS-CAT Pro v4 directory:

# chmod +x Assessor-CLI.sh

Once you have the requirements for running CIS evaluations, you can configure the wodle to check for specific benchmarks at your chosen interval. The scan results from these checks are sent to the manager and can be included in the visualizations.

Use case: Running a CIS evaluation

The following is an example of how to deploy the CIS-CAT integration:

1. In the configuration file, ossec.conf, set up a section as follows:

   1.1 If you are using a UNIX environment:

   1.1.1 If you are using a UNIX environment with CIS-CAT Pro v3:

   <wodle name="cis-cat">
   
     <disabled>no</disabled>
     <timeout>1800</timeout>
     <interval>1d</interval>
     <scan-on-start>yes</scan-on-start>
   
     <java_path>/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin</java_path>
     <ciscat_path>wodles/ciscat</ciscat_path>
     <ciscat_binary>CIS-CAT.sh</ciscat_binary>
   
     <content type="xccdf" path="benchmarks/CIS_Ubuntu_Linux_16.04_LTS_Benchmark_v1.0.0-xccdf.xml">
        <profile>xccdf_org.cisecurity.benchmarks_profile_Level_2_-_Server</profile>
     </content>
   
   </wodle>
   

   1.1.2 If you are using a UNIX environment with CIS-CAT Pro v4:

   <wodle name="cis-cat">
   
     <disabled>no</disabled>
     <timeout>1800</timeout>
     <interval>1d</interval>
     <scan-on-start>yes</scan-on-start>
   
     <java_path>/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin</java_path>
     <ciscat_path>wodles/ciscat</ciscat_path>
     <ciscat_binary>Assessor-CLI.sh</ciscat_binary>
   
     <content type="xccdf" path="benchmarks/CIS_Ubuntu_Linux_16.04_LTS_Benchmark_v1.0.0-xccdf.xml">
        <profile>"Level 2 - Server"</profile>
     </content>
   
   </wodle>
   

   1.2 If you are using a Windows environment:

   1.2.1 If you are using a Windows environment with CIS-CAT Pro v3:

   <wodle name="cis-cat">
     <disabled>no</disabled>
     <timeout>1800</timeout>
     <interval>1d</interval>
     <scan-on-start>yes</scan-on-start>
   
     <java_path>\\server\jre\bin</java_path>
     <ciscat_path>C:\cis-cat</ciscat_path>
     <ciscat_binary>CIS-CAT.BAT</ciscat_binary>
   
     <content type="xccdf" path="benchmarks\your_windows_benchmark_file_xccdf.xml">
        <profile>xccdf_org.cisecurity.benchmarks_profile_Level_2_-_Server</profile>
     </content>
   
   </wodle>
   

   1.2.2 If you are using a Windows environment with CIS-CAT Pro v4:

   <wodle name="cis-cat">
     <disabled>no</disabled>
     <timeout>1800</timeout>
     <interval>1d</interval>
     <scan-on-start>yes</scan-on-start>
   
     <java_path>\\server\jre\bin</java_path>
     <ciscat_path>C:\cis-cat</ciscat_path>
     <ciscat_binary>Assessor-CLI.bat</ciscat_binary>
   
     <content type="xccdf" path="benchmarks\your_windows_benchmark_file_xccdf.xml">
        <profile>"Level 2 - Server"</profile>
     </content>
   
   </wodle>
   

   Make sure the paths are correct for the location of your Java and the CIS-CAT tool. For both cases, you could specify the full path, or a relative path to the ThreatLockDown installation folder. Also, consider the following tips when configuring the content section:

   • The location of the selected benchmark file has to be indicated by the full path or by a relative path to the CIS-CAT installation folder.

   • If no profile is specified, the first one, which is usually the most permissive, will be selected.

2. After restarting the ThreatLockDown agent, the benchmark checks will be executed at the specified interval, triggering alerts as shown below.

** Alert 1518119251.42536: - ciscat,
2018 Feb 08 11:47:31 ubuntu->wodle_cis-cat
Rule: 87411 (level 5) -> 'CIS-CAT Report overview: Score less than 80% (53%)'
{"type":"scan_info","scan_id":1701467600,"cis":{"benchmark":"CIS Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS Benchmark","profile":"xccdf_org.cisecurity.benchmarks_profile_Level_2_-_Server","hostname":"ubuntu","timestamp":"2018-02-08T11:47:28.066-08:00","pass":98,"fail":85,"error":0,"unknown":1,"notchecked":36,"score":"53%"}}
type: scan_info
scan_id: 1701467600
cis.benchmark: CIS Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS Benchmark
cis.profile: xccdf_org.cisecurity.benchmarks_profile_Level_2_-_Server
cis.hostname: ubuntu
cis.timestamp: 2018-02-08T11:47:28.066-08:00
cis.pass: 98
cis.fail: 85
cis.error: 0
cis.unknown: 1
cis.notchecked: 36
cis.score: 53%

** Alert 1518119251.125999: - ciscat,
2018 Feb 08 11:47:31 ubuntu->wodle_cis-cat
Rule: 87409 (level 7) -> 'CIS-CAT: Ensure login and logout events are collected (failed)'
{"type":"scan_result","scan_id":1701467600,"cis":{"rule_id":"4.1.8","rule_title":"Ensure login and logout events are collected","group":"Logging and Auditing","description":"Monitor login and logout events. The parameters below track changes to files associated with login/logout events. The file /var/log/faillog tracks failed events from login. The file /var/log/lastlog maintain records of the last time a user successfully logged in. The file /var/log/tallylog maintains records of failures via the pam_tally2 module","rationale":"Monitoring login/logout events could provide a system administrator with information associated with brute force attacks against user logins.","remediation":"Add the following lines to the /etc/audit/audit.rules file: -w /var/log/faillog -p wa -k logins-w /var/log/lastlog -p wa -k logins-w /var/log/tallylog -p wa -k logins","result":"fail"}}
type: scan_result
scan_id: 1701467600
cis.rule_id: 4.1.8
cis.rule_title: Ensure login and logout events are collected
cis.group: Logging and Auditing
cis.description: Monitor login and logout events. The parameters below track changes to files associated with login/logout events. The file /var/log/faillog tracks failed events from login. The file /var/log/lastlog maintain records of the last time a user successfully logged in. The file /var/log/tallylog maintains records of failures via the pam_tally2 module
cis.rationale: Monitoring login/logout events could provide a system administrator with information associated with brute force attacks against user logins.
cis.remediation: Add the following lines to the /etc/audit/audit.rules file: -w /var/log/faillog -p wa -k logins-w /var/log/lastlog -p wa -k logins-w /var/log/tallylog -p wa -k logins
cis.result: fail

Use case: Scheduling CIS-CAT executions

New scheduling options have been added for the CIS-CAT module which allows the user to decide when to launch CIS scans in every agent.

As it is described in the CIS-CAT section of the reference documentation, there are available some new options that we could mix to reach the desired behavior.

The following sample blocks of the wodle configuration show the new possibilities to schedule when the module is launched. All of these options are independent of the scan-on-start option, which runs the scan always when the service is started.

<!-- Every 5 minutes from start -->
<interval>5m</interval>

<!-- 18:00 every day -->
<time>18:00</time>

<!-- 5:00 every four days -->
<time>5:00</time>
<interval>4d</interval>

<!-- 00:00 every monday -->
<wday>monday</wday>

<!-- 18:00 every monday -->
<wday>monday</wday>
<time>18:00</time>

<!-- 18:00 every monday with three weeks of frequency -->
<wday>monday</wday>
<time>18:00</time>
<interval>3w</interval>

<!-- 00:00 every 20th of the month -->
<day>20</day>

<!-- 18:00 every 20th of the month -->
<day>20</day>
<time>18:00</time>

<!-- 18:00,  20th every two months-->
<day>20</day>
<time>18:00</time>
<interval>2M</interval>