PostgreSQL must associate organization-defined types of security labels having organization-defined security label values with information in process.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-73013	PGS9-00-009400	SV-87665r1_rule		Medium

Description
Without the association of security labels to information, there is no basis for PostgreSQL to make security-related access-control decisions. Security labels are abstractions representing the basic properties or characteristics of an entity (e.g., subjects and objects) with respect to safeguarding information. These labels are typically associated with internal data structures (e.g., tables, rows) within the database and are used to enable the implementation of access control and flow control policies, reflect special dissemination, handling or distribution instructions, or support other aspects of the information security policy. One example includes marking data as classified or FOUO. These security labels may be assigned manually or during data processing, but, either way, it is imperative these assignments are maintained while the data is in storage. If the security labels are lost when the data is stored, there is the risk of a data compromise. The mechanism used to support security labeling may be the sepgsql feature of PostgreSQL, a third-party product, or custom application code.

Description

Without the association of security labels to information, there is no basis for PostgreSQL to make security-related access-control decisions. Security labels are abstractions representing the basic properties or characteristics of an entity (e.g., subjects and objects) with respect to safeguarding information. These labels are typically associated with internal data structures (e.g., tables, rows) within the database and are used to enable the implementation of access control and flow control policies, reflect special dissemination, handling or distribution instructions, or support other aspects of the information security policy. One example includes marking data as classified or FOUO. These security labels may be assigned manually or during data processing, but, either way, it is imperative these assignments are maintained while the data is in storage. If the security labels are lost when the data is stored, there is the risk of a data compromise. The mechanism used to support security labeling may be the sepgsql feature of PostgreSQL, a third-party product, or custom application code.

STIG	Date
PostgreSQL 9.x Security Technical Implementation Guide	2018-02-27

Details

Check Text ( C-73145r1_chk )
If security labeling is not required, this is not a finding. First, as the database administrator (shown here as "postgres"), run the following SQL against each table that requires security labels: $ sudo su - postgres $ psql -c "\d+ ." If security labeling requirements have been specified, but the security labeling is not implemented or does not reliably maintain labels on information in process, this is a finding.

Check Text ( C-73145r1_chk )

If security labeling is not required, this is not a finding.

First, as the database administrator (shown here as "postgres"), run the following SQL against each table that requires security labels:

$ sudo su - postgres
$ psql -c "\d+ ."

If security labeling requirements have been specified, but the security labeling is not implemented or does not reliably maintain labels on information in process, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-79459r1_fix)
In addition to the SQL-standard privilege system available through GRANT, tables can have row security policies that restrict, on a per-user basis, which rows can be returned by normal queries or inserted, updated, or deleted by data modification commands. This feature is also known as Row-Level Security (RLS). RLS policies can be very different depending on their use case. For one example of using RLS for Security Labels, see supplementary content APPENDIX-D.

Fix Text (F-79459r1_fix)

In addition to the SQL-standard privilege system available through GRANT, tables can have row security policies that restrict, on a per-user basis, which rows can be returned by normal queries or inserted, updated, or deleted by data modification commands. This feature is also known as Row-Level Security (RLS).

RLS policies can be very different depending on their use case. For one example of using RLS for Security Labels, see supplementary content APPENDIX-D.