Details

Tomcat allows auto deployment of applications on startup. It is recommended that this capability be disabled.

Rationale:

This could allow malicious or untested applications to be deployed and should be disabled.

Solution

In the $CATALINA_HOME/conf/server.xml file, change deployOnStartup to false.

deployOnStartup=’false’

Default Value:

deployOnStartup is set to true

References:

https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.0-doc/deployer-howto.html#Deployment_on_Tomcat_startup

https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.0-doc/config/host.html#Automatic_Application_Deployment

https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.0-doc/config/host.html

Supportive Information

The following resource is also helpful.

• https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/2506

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

References

• 800-53|CM-6
• CSCv7|5.1

Source

• Tenable.com/audits