Securing HP SWS Apache to DoD DISA STIG

[Peter Barkas]

Just reread the question. That depends on the privileges that the webservice is granted.

If the webservice has the privilege to modify system files then yes it is a concern.

So the answer is not to grant that kind of privilege to a webservice, and indeed why would one?

[Hoff]

Most security audits will fail the versions of Apache and php packages available for OpenVMS, among other common tools. (I've worked with auditors that have flagged and failed far newer versions than what are available with VMS.)

The web server should not own and should have extremely limited write access to any device and directory and file resources. The default should be no write access, and no control access, and often a top-level ACL on everything else blocking access. Some web-facing systems do require writeable directories (for client file uploads, usually), and those can be, well, hazardous.

It can be easier to deploy a locked down web server (often in a DMZ) than to try to lock down an existing and active server, too.

Web server attacks now tend to target the injection of php code or of SQL, depending on what services are active and what the site is serving up. Proper file protections are a reasonable backstop for some of that, but are far from a panacea. Other attacks can include gifar uploads (into directories that are writeable) and the recent spate of "fun" that has been Firesheep.

[Cass Witkowski]

Here is the security of HTTPD for HP SWS on OpenVMS.

HTTPD.CONF;15
[AP_HTTPD,APACHE$WWW] (RWED,RWED,,) (IDENTIFIER=APACHE$READ,ACCESS=READ)

So APACHE$WWW owns the file. It has owner access of RWED and the APACHE$READ identifer.

So it looks like the Webservice process that runs as the APACHE$WWW user has write access to the HTTPD.CONF file, unless I'm missing something.

[Peter Barkas]

It seems that O:RWED is the standard setting.

I think that the owner should have no access by protection setting.

Interested to know the HP response.