Cis Tomcat8 V110 4.6

Restrict access to Tomcat binaries directory (Scored)

Description

The Tomcat $CATALINA_HOME/bin directory contains executes that are part of the Tomcat run-time. It is recommended that the ownership of this directory be tomcat_admin:tomcat. It is also recommended that the permission on this directory deny read, write, and execute for the world (o-rwx) and deny write access to the group (g-w).

Rationale

Restricting access to these directories will prevent local users from maliciously or inadvertently affecting the integrity of Tomcat processes.

Audit Procedure

Perform the following to determine if the ownership and permissions on $CATALINA_HOME/bin are securely configured.

# cd $CATALINA_HOME
# find bin -follow -maxdepth 0 \( -perm /o+rwx,g=w -o ! -user tomcat_admin -o ! -group tomcat \) -ls

The above command should not produce any output.

Remediation

Perform the following to restrict access to Tomcat bin directory:

1. Set the ownership of the $CATALINA_HOME/bin to tomcat_admin:tomcat.

# chown tomcat_admin:tomcat $CATALINA_HOME/bin

2. Remove read, write, and execute permissions for the world.

# chmod g-w,o-rwx $CATALINA_HOME/bin

Default Value

The default permissions of the top-level directories are 770.

References

1. https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.0-doc/security-howto.html
2. https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.5-doc/security-howto.html

CIS Controls

v7:

• 14.6 Protect Information through Access Control Lists
  • Protect all information stored on systems with file system, network share, claims, application, or database specific access control lists. These controls will enforce the principle that only authorized individuals should have access to the information based on their need to access the information as a part of their responsibilities.

Profile Applicability

• Level 1