Active Directory Domain Security Technical Implementation Guide

Overview

VersionDateFinding Count (36)Downloads
32024-09-13CAT I (High): 5CAT II (Medium): 27CAT III (Low): 4
STIG Description
This Security Technical Implementation Guide is published as a tool to improve the security of Department of Defense (DOD) information systems. The requirements are derived from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-53 and related documents. Comments or proposed revisions to this document should be sent via email to the following address: disa.stig_spt@mail.mil.
ClassifiedPublicSensitive
I - Mission Critical ClassifiedI - Mission Critical PublicI - Mission Critical Sensitive
II - Mission Support ClassifiedII - Mission Support PublicII - Mission Support Sensitive
III - Administrative ClassifiedIII - Administrative PublicIII - Administrative Sensitive

Findings - MAC I - Mission Critical Public

Finding IDSeverityTitleDescription
V-243468
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Administrators must have separate accounts specifically for managing domain member servers.Personnel who are system administrators must log on to domain systems only using accounts with the minimum level of authority necessary. Only system a...
V-243469
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Administrators must have separate accounts specifically for managing domain workstations.Personnel who are system administrators must log on to domain systems only using accounts with the minimum level of authority necessary. Only system a...
V-243471
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Local administrator accounts on domain systems must not share the same password.Local administrator accounts on domain systems must use unique passwords. In the event a domain system is compromised, sharing the same password for l...
V-243472
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Separate smart cards must be used for Enterprise Admin (EA) and Domain Admin (DA) accounts from smart cards used for other accounts.A separate smart card for Enterprise Admin and Domain Admin accounts eliminates the automatic exposure of the private keys for the EA/DA accounts to l...
V-243473
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Separate domain accounts must be used to manage public facing servers from any domain accounts used to manage internal servers.Public facing servers should be in DMZs with separate Active Directory forests. If, because of operational necessity, this is not possible, lateral m...
V-243475
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Domain controllers must be blocked from Internet access.Domain controllers provide access to highly privileged areas of a domain. Such systems with Internet access may be exposed to numerous attacks and co...
V-243476
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
All accounts, privileged and unprivileged, that require smart cards must have the underlying NT hash rotated at least every 60 days.When a smart card is required for a domain account, a long password, unknown to the user, is generated. This password and associated NT hash are not c...
V-243477
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
User accounts with domain level administrative privileges must be members of the Protected Users group in domains with a domain functional level of Windows 2012 R2 or higher.User accounts with domain level administrative privileges are highly prized in Pass-the-Hash/credential theft attacks. The Protected Users group prov...
V-243478
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Domain-joined systems (excluding domain controllers) must not be configured for unconstrained delegation.Unconstrained delegation enabled on a computer can allow the computer account to be impersonated without limitation. If delegation is required, it mus...
V-243479
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
The Directory Service Restore Mode (DSRM) password must be changed at least annually.The Directory Service Restore Mode (DSRM) password, used to log on to a domain controller (DC) when rebooting into the server recovery mode, is very p...
V-243480
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
The domain functional level must be at a Windows Server version still supported by Microsoft.Domains operating at functional levels below Windows Server versions no longer supported by Microsoft reduce the level of security in the domain and f...
V-243481
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Access to need-to-know information must be restricted to an authorized community of interest.Because trust relationships effectively eliminate a level of authentication in the trusting domain or forest, they represent less stringent access con...
V-243484
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Security identifiers (SIDs) must be configured to use only authentication data of directly trusted external or forest trust.Under some circumstances it is possible for attackers or rogue administrators that have compromised a domain controller in a trusted domain to use the...
V-243485
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Selective Authentication must be enabled on outgoing forest trusts.Enabling Selective Authentication on outbound Active Directory (AD) forest trusts significantly strengthens access control by requiring explicit autho...
V-243486
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
The Anonymous Logon and Everyone groups must not be members of the Pre-Windows 2000 Compatible Access group.The Pre-Windows 2000 Compatible Access group was created to allow Windows NT domains to interoperate with AD domains by allowing unauthenticated acces...
V-243487
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Membership in the Group Policy Creator Owners and Incoming Forest Trust Builders groups must be limited.Membership in the Group Policy Creator Owners and Incoming Forest Trust Builders groups assigns a high privilege level for AD functions. Unnecessary ...
V-243489
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Read-only Domain Controller (RODC) architecture and configuration must comply with directory services requirements.The RODC role provides a unidirectional replication method for selected information from your internal network to the DMZ. If not properly configured ...
V-243490
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Usage of administrative accounts must be monitored for suspicious and anomalous activity.Monitoring the usage of administrative accounts can alert on suspicious behavior and anomalous account usage that would be indicative of potential mal...
V-243491
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Systems must be monitored for attempts to use local accounts to log on remotely from other systems.Monitoring for the use of local accounts to log on remotely from other systems may indicate attempted lateral movement in a Pass-the-Hash attack....
V-243492
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Systems must be monitored for remote desktop logons.Remote Desktop activity for administration should be limited to specific administrators, and from limited management workstations. Monitoring for any...
V-243493
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Active Directory data must be backed up daily for systems with a Risk Management Framework categorization for Availability of moderate or high. Systems with a categorization of low must be backed up weekly.Failure to maintain a current backup of directory data could make it difficult or impossible to recover from incidents including hardware failure or m...
V-243495
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
A VPN must be used to protect directory network traffic for directory service implementation spanning enclave boundaries.The normal operation of AD requires the use of IP network ports and protocols to support queries, replication, user authentication, and resource autho...
V-243496
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Accounts from outside directories that are not part of the same organization or are not subject to the same security policies must be removed from all highly privileged groups.Membership in certain default directory groups assigns a high privilege level for access to the directory. In AD, membership in the following groups e...
V-243497
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Inter-site replication must be enabled and configured to occur at least daily.Timely replication makes certain that directory service data is consistent across all servers that support the same scope of data for their clients. I...
V-243498
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
If a VPN is used in the AD implementation, the traffic must be inspected by the network Intrusion detection system (IDS).To provide data confidentiality, a VPN is configured to encrypt the data being transported. While this protects the data, some implementations do not ...
V-243500
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Active Directory must be supported by multiple domain controllers where the Risk Management Framework categorization for Availability is moderate or high.In Active Directory (AD) architecture, multiple domain controllers provide availability through redundancy. If an AD domain or servers within it have...
V-269097
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Windows Server domain controllers must have Kerberos logging enabled with servers hosting Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS).Although Kerberos logging can be used for troubleshooting, it can also provide security information for successful and failed login attempts. If a mal...
V-243488
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
User accounts with delegated authority must be removed from Windows built-in administrative groups or remove the delegated authority from the accounts.In AD it is possible to delegate account and other AD object ownership and administration tasks. (This is commonly done for help desk or other user su...
V-243494
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Each cross-directory authentication configuration must be documented.Active Directory (AD) external, forest, and realm trust configurations are designed to extend resource access to a wider range of users (those in othe...
V-243499
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Active Directory implementation information must be added to the organization contingency plan where the Risk Management Framework categorization for Availability is moderate or high.When an incident occurs that requires multiple Active Directory (AD) domain controllers to be rebuilt, it is critical to understand the AD hierarchy a...
V-243501
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
The impact of CPCON changes on the cross-directory authentication configuration must be considered and procedures documented.When incidents occur that require a change in the Cyber Protection Conditions (CPCON) with the release of USSCI 5200-13 status, it may be necessary to...
V-243466
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Membership to the Enterprise Admins group must be restricted to accounts used only to manage the Active Directory Forest.The Enterprise Admins group is a highly privileged group. Personnel who are system administrators must log on to Active Directory systems only using ...
V-243467
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Membership to the Domain Admins group must be restricted to accounts used only to manage the Active Directory domain and domain controllers.The Domain Admins group is a highly privileged group. Personnel who are system administrators must log on to Active Directory systems only using acco...
V-243470
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Delegation of privileged accounts must be prohibited.Privileged accounts such as those belonging to any of the administrator groups must not be trusted for delegation. Allowing privileged accounts to be ...
V-243482
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
Interconnections between DoD directory services of different classification levels must use a cross-domain solution that is approved for use with inter-classification trusts.If a robust cross-domain solution is not used, then it could permit unauthorized access to classified data. To support secure access between resources...
V-243483
LOWMEDIUMHIGH
A controlled interface must have interconnections among DoD information systems operating between DoD and non-DoD systems or networks.The configuration of an AD trust relationship is one of the steps used to allow users in one domain to access resources in another domain, forest, or ...