Cis Cassandra5 4.2

---
name: cis-cassandra5-4.2
description: "Ensure that auditing is enabled"
category: cis-cassandra
version: "1.1.0"
author: cyberstrike-official
tags: [cis, cassandra, linux, database, nosql, auditing, logging]
cis_id: "4.2"
cis_benchmark: "CIS Apache Cassandra 5.0 Benchmark v1.1.0"
tech_stack: [linux, cassandra]
cwe_ids: []
chains_with: []
prerequisites: []
severity_boost: {}
---

# Ensure that auditing is enabled (Manual)

## Profile Applicability

- Level 1 - Cassandra on Linux

## Description

Audit logging in Cassandra logs every incoming CQL command request, Authentication (successful as well as unsuccessful) to C\* node. Currently, there are two implementations provided, the custom logger can be implemented and injected with the class name as a parameter in cassandra.yaml.

## Rationale

Unauthorized attempts to create, drop or alter users or data should be a concern.

## Impact

None

## Audit Procedure

Allows logging to filesystem log files using logback or to a Cassandra table. When you turn on audit logging, the default is to write to logback filesystem log files. You can verify auditing is turned on:

```bash
cat cassandra.yaml | grep -Al "audit_logging_options"
```

If enabled is set to true, then success. Anything else is a finding.

## Remediation

Open the `cassandra.yaml` file in a text editor

In the `audit_logging_options` section, set `enabled` to `true`.

```yaml
# Audit logging options
audit_logging_options:
  enabled: true
```

## Default Value

Auditing is disabled by default.

## References

1. https://docs.datastax.com/en/datastax_enterprise/4.8/datastax_enterprise/sec/secAudit.html#secAudit

## CIS Controls

| Controls Version | Control                                                                                                                                                           | IG 1 | IG 2 | IG 3 |
| ---------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
| v8               | 8.2 Collect Audit Logs<br/>Collect audit logs. Ensure that logging, per the enterprise's audit log management process, has been enabled across enterprise assets. | ●    | ●    | ●    |
| v7               | 6.2 Activate audit logging<br/>Ensure that local logging has been enabled on all systems and networking devices.                                                  | ●    | ●    | ●    |