Details

To assure accountability and prevent unauthenticated access, privileged users must utilize multifactor authentication to prevent potential misuse and compromise of the system.

NOTE: Nessus has not performed this check. Please review the benchmark to ensure target compliance.

Solution

The following are pre-requisites to configuration smart card authentication for the ESXi DCUI:
-Active Directory domain that supports smart card authentication, smart card readers, and smart cards.
-ESXi joined to an Active Directory domain.
-Trusted certificates for root and intermediary certificate authorities.

From the vSphere Web Client, select the ESXi Host and go to Manage >> Authentication Services.

Edit the Smart Card Authentication configuration to add trusted certificate authority certificates.

Select ‘Enable Smart Card Authentication’.

Click OK.

For more information see the vSphere 6.0 documentation on VMware’s website.

Supportive Information

The following resource is also helpful.

• https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_VMware_vSphere_6-0_ESXi_V1R5_STIG.zip

This security hardening control applies to the following category of controls within NIST 800-53: Identification and Authentication.This control applies to the following type of system VMware.

References

• 800-53|IA-2(3)
• CAT|III
• CCI|CCI-000767
• Group-ID|V-63249
• Rule-ID|SV-77739r2_rule
• STIG-ID|ESXI-06-000040
• Vuln-ID|V-63249

Source

• Tenable.com/audits