cis-cassandra41-3.1

DevOps & Security

Ensure the cassandra and superuser roles are separate

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3.1 Ensure the cassandra and superuser roles are separate

Profile Applicability

Level 1 - Cassandra
Level 1 - Cassandra on Linux

Description

The default installation of Cassandra includes a superuser role named cassandra. This necessitates the creation of a separate role to be the superuser role.

Rationale

Superuser permissions allow for the creation, deletion, and permission management of other users. Considering the cassandra role is well known it should not be a superuser or one which is used for any administrative tasks.

Impact

If a separate superuser account is not created and tested for correct functionality prior to removing the superuser role from the cassandra account you will no longer be able to perform certain actions, including:

Create a role with super user status.
Perform DROP or CREATE USER queries.

Audit

To verify the configuration, run the following query:

select role from system_auth.roles where is_superuser= True;

If you get an error 2200 [ INVALID QUERY] due to where clause, add "ALLOW FILTERING to end of query so it looks like this:

select role from system_auth.roles where is_superuser= True ALLOW FILTERING;

Looking at the role, verify any show up with is_superuser = True and make sure it is not cassandra or any unapproved role. If any are found then, this is a finding.

Remediation

To remediate a misconfiguration, perform the following steps:

Execute the following command:

create role '<NEW_ROLE_HERE>' with password='<NEW_PASSWORD_HERE>' and login=TRUE and superuser=TRUE ;

grant all permissions on all keyspaces to <NEW_ROLE_HERE>;

Note: Replace <NEW_ROLE_HERE> with the desired role and <NEW_PASSWORD_HERE> with a password.

Verify the new role is working.
Remove the superuser role from the cassandra account by executing the following command:

UPDATE system_auth.roles SET is_superuser=null WHERE role='cassandra';

Default Value

By default, Cassandra ships with a cassandra superuser role.

References

Not specified in the benchmark.

CIS Controls

v8:

5.4 Restrict Administrator Privileges to Dedicated Administrator Accounts
- Restrict administrator privileges to dedicated administrator accounts on enterprise assets. Conduct general computing activities, such as internet browsing, email, and productivity suite use, from the user's primary, non-privileged account.

v7:

4.3 Ensure the Use of Dedicated Administrative Accounts
- Ensure that all users with administrative account access use a dedicated or secondary account for elevated activities. This account should only be used for administrative activities and not internet browsing, email, or similar activities.

Profile

Level 1 | Automated