Ensure HTTP Strict Transport Security Is Enabled

LowLevel 2Automatedapache

Description

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is an optional web server security policy mechanism specified by an HTTP Server header. The HSTS header allows a server declaration that only HTTPS communication should be used rather than clear text HTTP communication. At least one Header directive must set Strict-Transport-Security and every such header must have max-age of 480 seconds or more. Reads the main configuration (APACHE_CONF overrides; default /etc/apache2/apache2.conf, /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf or /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf) and every Include/IncludeOptional file. CIS marks this recommendation Manual; the automated check implements its audit procedure.

How it is checked

Audit method: Shell command

shell

c=${APACHE_CONF:-}; if [ -z "$c" ]; then for f in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf /etc/apache2/httpd.conf; do [ -f "$f" ] && { c=$f; break; }; done; fi; [ -r "$c" ] || exit 1; R=$(awk 'tolower($1)=="serverroot"{v=$2; gsub(/"/,"",v); print v; exit}' "$c"); [ -n "$R" ] || R=$(dirname "$c"); shopt -s nocasematch; inc(){ local p g l; [ ${#FUNCNAME[@]} -lt 16 ] || return 0; p=$1; case $p in /*) ;; *) p=$R/$p;; esac; [ -d "$p" ] && p="$p/*"; for g in $p; do [ -f "$g" ] || continue; while IFS= read -r l || [ -n "$l" ]; do if [[ $l =~ ^[[:space:]]*include(optional)?[[:space:]]+\"?([^\"[:space:]]+) ]]; then inc "${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"; else printf '%s\n' "$l"; fi; done < "$g"; done; }; cfg=$(inc "$c" | sed -e 's/^[[:space:]]*//' -e '/^#/d' -e '/^$/d'); shopt -u nocasematch; printf '%s\n' "$cfg" | awk '{l=tolower($0)} l~/^header[[:space:]]/ && l~/strict-transport-security/{n++; m=0; if(match(l,/max-age=[0-9]+/)) m=substr(l,RSTART+8,RLENGTH-8)+0; if(m<480) bad=1} END{print (n>0&&!bad)?"compliant":"noncompliant"}'

Expected output: compliant

How it is fixed

Fix method: Guidance or infrastructure patch

Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=600" (at server level and in each TLS virtual host). Then run apachectl configtest and reload Apache.

Properties

Operating systems: Any
Tags: apachetlsheaders
Reference: CIS Apache HTTP Server 2.4 Benchmark v2.4.0 - 7.11 Ensure HTTP Strict Transport Security Is Enabled

Check this host

Run this on a machine you are allowed to audit. The scan is read-only.

shell

tmaegis scan --target apache --level 2