Details

Symbolic links permit one application to include the libraries from another. This allows for re-use of code but also allows for potential security issues when applications include libraries from other applications to which they should not have access.

Rationale:

Allowing symbolic links makes Tomcat susceptible to directory traversal vulnerability. Also, there is a potential that an application could link to another application to which it should not be linking. On case-insensitive operating systems there is also the threat of source code disclosure.

Solution

In all context.xml, set the allowLinking attribute to false:

…

…

Default Value:

By default allowLinking has a value of false.

References:

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

https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.0-doc/config/context.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