cis-cassandra311-4-2

name	cis-cassandra311-4.2
description	Ensure that auditing is enabled
category	cis-cassandra
version	1.1.0
author	cyberstrike-official
tags	["cis","cassandra","auditing","logging"]
cis_id	4.2
cis_benchmark	CIS Apache Cassandra 3.11 Benchmark v1.1.0
tech_stack	["cassandra"]
cwe_ids	[]
chains_with	[]
prerequisites	[]
severity_boost	{}

4.2 Ensure that auditing is enabled

Profile Applicability

• Level 1 - Cassandra on Linux
• Level 2 - Cassandra on Linux

Description

Audit logging in Cassandra logs every incoming CQL command request, Authentication (successful as well as unsuccessful login) to C* node. Currently, there are two implementations provided, the custom logger can be implemented and injected with the class name as parameter in cassandra.yaml.

Rationale

Unauthorized attempts to create, drop or alter users or data should be a concern.

Audit

Open Source Version Apache Cassandra versions up to 3.11.4 does not have auditing capabilities, it will be in version 4.x but that has not been released yet according to apache Cassandra website. https://cassandra.apache.org/download/

Commercial Version Allows via DataStax allows logging to filesystem log files using logback, or to a Cassandra table. When you turn on audit logging, the default is to write to logback filesystem log files. If using DataStax version you can verify auditing is turned on.

cat dse.yaml | grep "audit_logging_options"

If failure is enabled: true means success Anything else is a finding

Remediation

Open Source Version Apache Cassandra versions up to 3.11.4 does not have auditing capabilities, it will be in version 4.x but that has not been released yet according to apache Cassandra website. https://cassandra.apache.org/download/

Commercial Version Open the dse.yaml file in a text editor In the audit_logging_options section, set enabled to true.

You must also define where you want logging to go, add either of the following lines: Set the logger option to either CassandraAuditWriter, which logs to a table, or SLF4JAuditWriter, which logs to the SLF4J logger.

Default Value

Auditing is disabled by default.

References

1. https://docs.datastax.com/en/datastax_enterprise/4.8/datastax_enterprise/sec/se cAudit.html#secAudit

CIS Controls

• v8: 8.2 Collect Audit Logs
• v7: 6.2 Activate audit logging

Profile

• Level 1 | Manual