InSpec Workshop at Velocity London 2018

Building Security Into Your Workflow
with InSpec
Mandi Walls | mandi@chef.io

HI!
• Mandi Walls
• Technical Community Manager for Chef, EMEA
• mandi@chef.io
• @lnxchk

EVERY business is a software business
We’re going to be a software
company with airplanes.
– CIO, Alaska Airlines

Shared Goals, Different Languages

InSpec
• Human-readable
• Test security and compliance
• Create, share, and reuse profiles
• Extend for your applications and systems
• Plug into your existing workflows / build servers
• Fast feedback with Test Kitchen

Lifecycle
• When you get a mandate from security, how often is it checked?
• Single big scan, report mailed out with a “due date”?
• Yearly or twice-yearly massive scans with remediation firedrills?

SSH Requirement
• If your security team sends you a directive:
SSH supports two different protocol versions. The
original version, SSHv1, was subject to a number
of security issues. All systems must use SSHv2
instead to avoid these issues.

What To Do?
• Locate configuration file
• Locate correct setting
• Schedule a fix and restart
• Who fixes OS images?
• Do you need to test new settings?

Check that sshd_config
describe sshd_config do
impact 1.0
title 'SSH Version 2'
desc <<-EOF
SSH supports two different protocol versions. The original version, SSHv1, was subject to a
number of security issues. Please use SSHv2 instead to avoid these.
EOF
its('Protocol') { should cmp 2 }
end

Resources
• Resources examine common services, system files, and
configurations
See http://inspec.io/docs/reference/resources/ for the current list!
• Various Linux distros, plus Windows
• Check the characteristics of the resource (e.g., file size, owner)
• InSpec libraries are Matchers for testing and verifying
characteristics

• Resources include where the item is and how to look at it
• Included parsers do the work for you
• Similar to Ruby testing language rSpec, meant to be human
readable

its.... should...
• it { should exist }
• it { should be_installed }
• it { should be_enabled }
• its('max_log_file') { should cmp 6 }
• its('exit_status') { should eq 0 }
• its('gid') { should eq 0 }

SSH Configuration
describe sshd_config do
impact 1.0
title 'SSH Version 2'
desc <<-EOF
SSH supports two different protocol versions. The original version, SSHv1, was subject to a
number of security issues. Please use SSHv2 instead to avoid these.
EOF
its('Protocol') { should cmp 2 }
end
The Resource – built in
InSpec will find this in the fil

Run It
• InSpec is command line
Installs on your workstation as a ruby gem or as part of the ChefDK
• Can be run locally, test the machine it is executing on
• Or remotely
InSpec will log into the target and run the tests for you
• Also a REPL
https://www.inspec.io/docs/reference/shell/

Using InSpec
User: chef
Pass: velocityLon2018

Find It!
• http://inspec.io/
• Open Source, but cool stuff in the server
• Looks like other "spec" testing languages
• ChefDK or separate from downloads.chef.io
• It's already installed on your test host
$ inspec –version
3.0.12

Create a Basic Test – test.rb
• Let’s write a basic test to make sure /tmp is a directory
• It also should be owned by root
• And its mode should be 01777 – open to all (plus sticky bit!)
• Let’s check out the docs for the “file” resource for InSpec:w

File Resources in InSpec
• https://www.inspec.io/docs/reference/resources/file/
• We want:
Directory
Owner
Mode
describe file(‘path’) do
it { should MATCHER ‘value’ }
end

test.rb
describe file('/tmp') do
it { should exist }
it { should be_directory }
it { should be_owned_by 'root' }
its('mode') { should cmp '01777' }
end
describe file('/tmp/') do
it { should exist }
its('type') { should eq :directory }
it { should_not be_file }
its('owner') { should eq 'root' }
its('mode') { should cmp '01777' }
end

Test Any Target
inspec exec test.rb
inspec exec test.rb -i ~/.aws/cert.pem -t ssh://ec2-
user@192.168.1.2
inspec exec test.rb -t winrm://Admin@192.168.1.2 --password
super
inspec exec test.rb -t docker://3dda08e75838

Execute InSpec
[chef@host ~]$ inspec exec ./test.rb
Profile: tests from ./test.rb
Version: (not specified)
Target: local://
File /tmp
✔ should exist
✔ should be directory
✔ should be owned by "root"
✔ mode should cmp == "01777"
Test Summary: 4 successful, 0 failures, 0 skipped

Failures
• InSpec runs with failed tests return a non-zero return code
Profile Summary: 0 successful, 1 failures, 0 skipped
[chef@ip-172-31-29-25 ~]$ echo $?
1
[chef@ip-172-31-29-25 ~]$
• Passing tests have 0 return code
Profile Summary: 1 successful, 0 failures, 0 skipped
[chef@ip-172-31-29-25 ~]$ echo $?
0
[chef@ip-172-31-29-25 ~]$

Security Rule: set ssh login banner
• When logging into any machine your organization, display a notification:
"Welcome to MyCorp. This is a secure system and all activities are logged.
Authorized users only."
• The file /etc/ssh/sshd_banner
• We want it to exist and have the above content

$ vi banner.rb
describe file('/etc/ssh/sshd_banner') do
it { should exist }
its('content') { should match /Authorized users only/ }
end

$ sudo inspec exec banner.rb
Profile: tests from banner.rb (tests from banner.rb)
Target: local://
File /etc/ssh/sshd_banner
× should exist
expected File /etc/ssh/sshd_banner to exist
× content should match /Authorized users only/
expected nil to match /Authorized users only/

Test-driven Development
• We created the test first
• We know the feature we need does not exist on the machine
• Now we can create the sshd_banner file and re-run our test
• This helps us check our assumptions about the state of the system
• Create the banner file and run inspec again

$ sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_banner
Welcome to MyCorp.
This is a secure system and all activities are logged.
Authorized users only.

Target: local://
✔ should exist
✔ content should match /Authorized users only/

$ vi banner.rb
...
describe file('/etc/ssh/sshd_config') do
its('content') { should match /^Banner /etc/ssh/sshd_banner/ }
end

Target: local://
✔ should exist
File /etc/ssh/sshd_config
× content should match /$Banner /etc/ssh/sshd_banner/
expected "#t$OpenBSD: sshd_config,v 1.100 2016/08/15 12:32:04 naddy Exp
$nn# This is the sshd server system...oncvsn#tX11Forwarding
non#tAllowTcpForwarding non#tPermitTTY non#tForceCommand cvs servern" to
match /$Banner /etc/ssh/sshd_banner/

$ sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Find the line for the banner:
# no default banner path
#Banner none
Change to:
# add default banner path
Banner /etc/ssh/sshd_banner

Target: local://
✔ should exist
File /etc/ssh/sshd_config
✔ content should match /^Banner /etc/ssh/sshd_banner/

Profiles
• InSpec profiles allow you to package and share sets of InSpec
tests for your organization or for a specific application set
• Profiles are made up of controls
• Controls are made up of resources and tests, with priority and
metadata
Name your controls based on what they do or link them to a written doc
• Each profile can have multiple test files included and many
controls

Hardening with InSpec
• Centos 7 host
• os-hardening cookbook from https://supermarket.chef.io
• /dev-sec/linux-baseline InSpec profile from https://github.com/dev-
sec/linux-baseline

What’s in the linux-baseline Profile
control 'os-02' do
impact 1.0
title 'Check owner and permissions for /etc/shadow'
desc 'Check periodically the owner and permissions for /etc/shadow'
describe file('/etc/shadow') do
it { should exist }
it { should be_file }
it { should be_owned_by 'root' }
its('group') { should eq shadow_group }
it { should_not be_executable }
it { should be_writable.by('owner') }
...

Use the Profile
$ git clone https://github.com/dev-sec/linux-baseline
...
$ sudo inspec exec linux-baseline
Profile Summary: 27 successful controls, 26 control failures, 1
control skipped
$

What’s in the os-hardening Cookbook

Use Chef to Repair the Findings
$ chef generate cookbook harden

Create a Cookbooks Package
$ cd harden
$ berks install
$ berks package
$ cd ..
$ tar –xzvf harden/cookbooks-VERSION.tar.gz
• This process will create a collection of Chef cookbooks to fix the issues that
caused InSpec to fail
• We won't need to connect to a Chef server for this method, all the
cookbooks will be downloaded locally

Run chef-client to remediate failed tests
$ sudo chef-client -r "recipe[os-hardening]" --local-mode
...
Chef Client finished, 141/206 resources updated in 08 seconds
• We're ignoring our harden cookbook for the moment, relying only on the os-
hardening cookbook that it downloaded. We could also change the recipes
in the harden cookbook to execute os-hardening from there. That's more
chef than we'll get into here.

Rerun the Tests
$ sudo inspec exec linux-baseline/
...
Profile Summary: 52 successful controls, 1 control failure, 1
control skipped
Test Summary: 124 successful, 1 failure, 1 skipped

Auditd
× package-08: Install auditd (1 failed)
✔ System Package audit should be installed
✔ Audit Daemon Config log_file should cmp == "/var/log/audit/audit.log"
✔ Audit Daemon Config log_format should cmp == "raw"
✔ Audit Daemon Config flush should match /^INCREMENTAL|INCREMENTAL_ASYNC$/
× Audit Daemon Config max_log_file_action should cmp == "keep_logs"
expected: "keep_logs"
got: ROTATE
(compared using `cmp` matcher)

What’s Still Failing?
• Find the controls that aren’t passing
• Decide if you want to fix them or forget them
• We'll build a new profile to wrap around linux-baseline
And exclude the failing test

Building New Profiles
$ inspec init profile my_hardening
Create new profile at /home/chef/my_hardening
* Create file README.md
* Create directory controls
* Create file controls/example.rb
* Create file inspec.yml
* Create directory libraries
This is a new InSpec profile, vs the new Chef cookbook we created earlier.

Including Profiles
$ vi my_hardening/inspec.yml
name: my_hardening
title: InSpec Profile
...
version: 0.1.0
depends:
- name: linux-baseline
path: ../linux-baseline

Profile Dependencies
• InSpec will find or retrieve the included profile
• You can choose to use all of the profile or pick a few controls
• You can also exclude controls that don't meet your needs
• Create a new control file to manage the other profile's controls

Skipping Individual Controls
$ vi my_hardening/controls/my.rb
include_controls 'linux-baseline' do
skip_control ‘package-08'
end
We want to run all of the controls from linux-baseline except package-08
• You can also remove the file my_hardening/controls/example.rb if you want
to

Rerun the InSpec Profile
$ sudo inspec exec my_hardening/
...
Profile Summary: 53 successful controls, 0 control failures, 1
control skipped

Additional Features
• Use InSpec to test resources in the Cloud – Azure, AWS, GCP
describe aws_s3_bucket('test_bucket') do
it { should_not be_public }
end
• Industry-standard profiles such as CIS available via commercial solutions

Test Kitchen
• InSpec also runs as a test suite in Test Kitchen
• Test Kitchen is a tool for your team to create fast-feedback loops for
development
• Add InSpec tests to TK so that any change can also be certified with the
security profile before it is pushed to source code repository
• More info at http://kitchen.ci/

InSpec and Chef's Automate
• InSpec profiles are a component of Chef's Automate server, providing a
GUI and metrics collection about compliance across your estate
• Additional industry-standard profiles are also available commercially via
Automate

Resources
• https://inspec.io
• https://dev-sec.io
• https://github.com/chef-training/workshops/
• http://www.anniehedgie.com/inspec-basics-1
• http://blog.johnray.io/chef-inspec-and-dirty-cow

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