MACF-6208 - AppArmor status

This information is provided as part of the Lynis community project. It is related to Lynis control MACF-6208 and should be considered as-is and without guarantees. Any advice and commands should be tested before implementing them in production environments.

Control details
CategoryFramework
Application

Description

This test determines the status of AppArmor, on systems like Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, and others.

How to solve

Two common security frameworks are SELinux and AppArmor. The choice for which framework on systems running Debian and Ubuntu is easy. Only AppArmor is available. This is because only support for this framework is compiled into the Linux kernel. When possible enable the capabilities of AppArmor. This helps to restrict processes from accessing data they are not supposed to.

If you really want to harden your Ubuntu systems, then AppArmor is a great addition. This framework defines what running processes can do, or access. Think of it like a prison guard that continuously monitors its prisoners, to ensure they only do activities that are allowed. The allowed activities are stored in policy files, together with the related processes.

Additional resources

Need more details?

Consider the upgrade to Lynis Enterprise to receive additional details and guidance. The Enterprise version helps to you with daily health checks of your environment, learn in-depth system hardening, and resources to protect your systems better.

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About

Lynis is a technical security auditing tool for Unix flavors like Linux, macOS, AIX, Solaris, and *BSD. It is open source software and free to use. Typical usage include system hardening, compliance testing, and vulnerability scanning. The project has an active community, including development via GitHub.

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