LJK/Security Reference Manual

LJK/Security Reference Manual

Order Number: LJKS-REF-V029 This software is intended to assist in security assessment of VMS systems. It is not a substitute for a trained professional conducting periodic security assessments, but rather is intended to aid and assist that individual in performing the assessments on a more frequent and thorough basis than would otherwise be possible.

Information generated by this software should be treated on a confidential basis, since it constitutes a list of security vulnerabilities of your computer systems.

Revision/Update Information: Supercedes LJKS-REF-V027

Operating System and Version: VAX/VMS Version 4.2 or higher
MicroVMS Version 4.2 or higher
OpenVMS AXP Version 1.0 or higher

Software Version: LJK/Security V2.9

2005

Copyright ©1988-2005 by LJK Software, 1 Broadway, Suite 600, Cambridge, MA 02142-1100

The following are trademarks of LJK Software:

The following are trademarks of Hewlett Packard:

The following is a trademarks of Process Software:

Contents Index

Preface

If you are a first-time reader interested in making productive use of the software as soon as possible, you should concentrate on the Overview Part.

Document Structure

This manual describes LJK/Security software and how it can be used in assessing security of VMS systems.

Overview Part

User Interfaces Part

Tests Part

Site-Specific Customization Part

Appendices

Intended Audience

This manual is for use by those responsible for conducting security assessments of VMS systems using the LJK/Security software.

It is possible to use the manual and run the software without an in-depth knowledge of VMS, but when potential problems are detected, resolution will often require considerable VMS expertise on the part of the LJK/Security user, or consultation with someone else (perhaps in a system management position) who has that expertise.

LJK Software provides telephone support regarding operation of the LJK/Security software and in many cases can offer alternative methods of addressing security problems you detect. But there is often a point where security goals conflict with other goals at your site in such a fashion that considerable system management or system programming effort is required to alleviate the security weakness without unduly burdening ongoing operations. In that situation, you will need local experts with those skills.

Associated Documents

Depending upon the VMS version(s) being run, the user should be familiar with the appropriate VMS security manuals:

For versions of VMS since V6.1 and all non-VAX versions, those documents are also available on CDROMs that came with your VMS software.

Conventions

Within LJK/Security Reference Manual, boldfaced words within normal text paragraphs have specific meanings outlined in the Glossary.

Throughout this document use of the second person ("you") or the term "user" refers to the intended reader of this manual, an individual who has been given appropriate facility-specific identifiers or is otherwise authorized to use LJK/Security as discussed in Section 5.4.

  1. Include the Limit comments with results
    Comments from policy limits will be included in results from assessment of tributaries. Sites can use this to indicate the authority under which a particular policy was set, such as citing a particular organization memo or some external source such as the NIST Special Publication 800-53 policy as described in Appendix K, Creating Policies Based on Examples.
    Comments on Limits are shown, but not comments on Exemptions since the effect of an Exemption is to _prevent_ results from being shown.
  2. Display Policy as a command procedure
    Adding the qualifier /COMMAND_PROCEDURE to the SHOW POLICY command causes the output to be formatted as a command procedure. When that output is sent to a file with the /OUTPUT= qualifier, you can edit the resulting command procedure to change all instances of the string <policy-name> to be the name of some other policy to which you want the same values applied. The usefulness of this is somewhat greater when you also delete or modify some lines within the command procedure.
    The command procedure is created with each command on a single line, allowing use of VMS utilities such as SORT and SEARCH.
  3. Password History tests
    New tests are provided:
    Testing either the VMS defaults of 365 and 60 (respectively) or the numeric values of system logical names:
    against the limits in the policy.
  4. UAF, PWDNULL tests added
    Two additional constraints allow testing a policy that requires primary or secondary passwords based on privilege category.
  5. Add the following elements for new VMS UAF flag bits:

  10. TERM, TYPEAHEAD tests added
  11. Tests for SYS$ANNOUNCE and SYS$WELCOME
    Tests indicating text which must be present in a message.
  12. DEVICE, CHECKPROT tests added
    In a manner similar to CHECKSUM, this element tests only based on specified exemptions. Thus it can be used to test special protection requirements for precisely named files, including requirements for Alarm ACEs and Audit ACEs in the ACL for a file.
  13. Add non-alarm audit constraints to existing elements
    Those AUREQUIRE tests allow the TRY value, since the tests are not meaningful prior to VMS V5.4 where the only audit outputs were alarms.
    These AUREQUIRE tests have process type Selectors, so they do not allow the TRY value, in order to provide symmetry and preserve compatibility with the corresponding ALREQUIRE tests.
    These AUREQUIRE tests have access type Selectors, so they do not allow the TRY value, in order to provide symmetry and preserve compatibility with the corresponding ALREQUIRE tests.

  14. Failure Action Elements renamed
    The following elements have been renamed:
    to reflect the fact that they are not particularly more associated with Alarms than with Audits. Existing policies are preserved.
  15. Final Resource Action Constraints added
    New tests are provided:
  16. Additional Audit Tests

  52. Example Policies
    As described in Appendix K, Creating Policies Based on Examples, LJK/Security now provides command procedures in LJK$SECURITY_EXAMPLES: that can be used to create policies conforming to certain published standards such as NIST Special Publication 800-53.

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