Details

The Tomcat configuration file web.xml stores application configuration settings. It is recommended that access to this file properly protect from unauthorized changes.

Rationale:

Restricting access to this file will prevent local users from maliciously or inadvertently altering Tomcat’s security policy.

Solution

Perform the following to restrict access to web.xml:

Set the ownership of the $CATALINA_HOME/conf/web.xml to tomcat_admin:tomcat.

# chown tomcat_admin:tomcat $CATALINA_HOME/conf/web.xml

Set the permissions for the $CATALINA_HOME/conf/web.xml file to 400.

# chmod 400 $CATALINA_HOME/conf/web.xml

Default Value:

The default permissions of web.xml are 400.

Supportive Information

The following resource is also helpful.

• https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/3090

This security hardening control applies to the following category of controls within NIST 800-53: Access Control.This control applies to the following type of system Unix.

References

• 800-53|AC-3
• CSCv7|14.6

Source

• Tenable.com/audits