4.1.4 Ensure events that modify date and time information are collected (Scored)
Profile Applicability
Level 2 - Server Level 2 - Workstation
Description
Capture events where the system date and/or time has been modified. The parameters in this section are set to determine if the adjtimex
(tune kernel clock), settimeofday
(Set time, using timeval and timezone structures) stime (using seconds since 1/1/1970) or clock_settime
(allows for the setting of several internal clocks and timers) system calls have been executed and always write an audit record to the /var/log/audit.log
file upon exit, tagging the records with the identifier “time-change”
Rationale
Unexpected changes in system date and/or time could be a sign of malicious activity on the system.
Audit
On a 32 bit system run the following command and verify the output matches:
# grep time-change /etc/audit/audit.rules -a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S adjtimex -S settimeofday -S stime -k time-change -a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S clock_settime -k time-change -w /etc/localtime -p wa -k time-change
On a 64 bit system run the following command and verify the output matches:
# grep time-change /etc/audit/audit.rules -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S adjtimex -S settimeofday -k time-change -a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S adjtimex -S settimeofday -S stime -k time-change -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S clock_settime -k time-change -a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S clock_settime -k time-change -w /etc/localtime -p wa -k time-change
Remediation
For 32 bit systems add the following lines to the /etc/audit/audit.rules file:
-a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S adjtimex -S settimeofday -S stime -k time-change -a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S clock_settime -k time-change -w /etc/localtime -p wa -k time-change
For 64 bit systems add the following lines to the /etc/audit/audit.rules file:
-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S adjtimex -S settimeofday -k time-change -a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S adjtimex -S settimeofday -S stime -k time-change -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S clock_settime -k time-change -a always,exit -F arch=b32 -S clock_settime -k time-change -w /etc/localtime -p wa -k time-change