The Photon operating system must send Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) timestamps.

Severity
Group ID
Group Title
Version
Rule ID
Date
STIG Version
mediumV-256576SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227PHTN-30-000107SV-256576r991589_rule2024-12-161

Description

TCP timestamps are used to provide protection against wrapped sequence numbers. It is possible to calculate system uptime (and boot time) by analyzing TCP timestamps. These calculated uptimes can help a bad actor in determining likely patch levels for vulnerabilities.

ℹ️ Check

At the command line, run the following command: # /sbin/sysctl -a --pattern "net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps$" Expected result: net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps = 1 If the output does not match the expected result, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix

At the command line, run the following commands: # sed -i -e "/^net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps/d" /etc/sysctl.conf # echo net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps=1>>/etc/sysctl.conf # /sbin/sysctl --load