RHEL 9 must be configured to disable the FireWire kernel module.

Disabling firewire protects the system against exploitation of any flaws in its implementation.

Verify that RHEL 9 disables the ability to load the firewire-core kernel module with the following command:

$ grep -r firewire-core /etc/modprobe.conf /etc/modprobe.d/* 

install firewire-core /bin/false blacklist firewire-core

If the command does not return any output, or the lines are commented out, and use of firewire-core is not documented with the information system security officer (ISSO) as an operational requirement, this is a finding.

To configure the system to prevent the firewire-core kernel module from being loaded, add the following lines to the file /etc/modprobe.d/firewire-core.conf (or create firewire-core.conf if it does not exist):

install firewire-core /bin/false blacklist firewire-core