Details

GSSAPI authentication is used to provide additional authentication mechanisms to applications. Allowing GSSAPI authentication through SSH exposes the system’s GSSAPI to remote hosts, increasing the attack surface of the system.

Solution

From an SSH session connected to the ESXi host, or from the ESXi shell, add or correct the following line in ‘/etc/ssh/sshd_config’:

GSSAPIAuthentication no

Supportive Information

The following resource is also helpful.

• https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_VMW_vSphere_6-5_Y21M10_STIG.zip

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-6b.
• CAT|III
• CCI|CCI-000366
• Rule-ID|SV-207619r388482_rule
• STIG-ID|ESXI-65-000018
• STIG-Legacy|SV-104069
• STIG-Legacy|V-93983
• Vuln-ID|V-207619

Source

• Tenable.com/audits