Ensure 'Change the system time' is set to 'Administrators, LOCAL SERVICE'

HighLevel 1Automatedwindows

Description

This policy setting determines which users and groups can change the time and date on the internal clock of the computers in your environment. Users who are assigned this user right can affect the appearance of event logs. When a computer's time setting is changed, logged events reflect the new time, not the actual time that the events occurred. The recommended state for this setting is: Administrators, LOCAL SERVICE. Note: Discrepancies between the time on the local computer and on the Domain Controllers in your environment may cause problems for the Kerberos authentication protocol, which co

How it is checked

Audit method: Shell command

shell

$f = Join-Path $env:TEMP ('tmaegis-' + [guid]::NewGuid().ToString() + '.inf'); secedit /export /cfg $f /areas SECURITYPOLICY USER_RIGHTS /quiet | Out-Null; $c = Get-Content $f -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue; Remove-Item $f -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue; $line = $c | Where-Object { $_ -match '^\s*SeSystemtimePrivilege\s*=' } | Select-Object -First 1; $v = if ($line) { ($line -split '=', 2)[1].Trim().Trim('"') } else { $null }; $have = @(if ($v) { $v -split ',' | ForEach-Object { $_.Trim().TrimStart('*') } | Where-Object { $_ } }); if ((($have | Sort-Object -Unique) -join ',') -eq 'S-1-5-19,S-1-5-32-544') { 'compliant' } else { 'non-compliant: ' + ($have -join ',') }

Expected output: compliant

How it is fixed

Fix method: Guidance or infrastructure patch

Set through Group Policy (domain policy for domain members): Computer Configuration\Policies\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\User Rights Assignment\Change the system time

Properties

Operating systems: windows-10
Tags: cis-convertedseceditwindows
Reference: CIS Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise Benchmark v4.0.0 - 2.2.8

Check this host

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

shell

tmaegis scan --target windows