STIGUI
V-258988CAT II — Medium severitySV-258988r1264890_rule

The vCenter STS service cookies must have "http-only" flag set.

Rule version VCST-80-000129 · STIG v2 · 2026-08-26

Discussion

Cookies are a common way to save session state over the HTTP(S) protocol. If attackers can compromise session data stored in a cookie, they are better able to launch an attack against the server and its applications. When a cookie is tagged with the "HttpOnly" flag, it tells the browser this particular cookie should only be accessed by the originating server. Any attempt to access the cookie from client script is strictly forbidden.

Check

At the command prompt, run the following command:

# xmllint --format /usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf/web.xml | sed 's/xmlns=".*"//g' | xmllint --xpath '/web-app/session-config/cookie-config/http-only' -

Expected result:

<http-only>true</http-only>

If the output does not match the expected result, this is a finding.

Fix

Navigate to and open:

/usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf/web.xml

Navigate to the <session-config> node and configure the <http-only> as follows:

<session-config> <session-timeout>30</session-timeout> <cookie-config> <http-only>true</http-only> <secure>true</secure> </cookie-config> </session-config>

Restart the service with the following command:

# vmon-cli --restart sts

Identifiers

Group ID
V-258988
Group title
SRG-APP-000033-AS-000024
Rule ID
SV-258988r1264890_rule
Check ID
C-62728r934620_chk
Fix ID
F-62637r934621_fix