The Apache web server must encrypt passwords during transmission.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-214327	SRG-APP-000172-WSR-000104	AS24-W1-000370	SV-214327r961029_rule	2025-02-12	3

Description
Data used to authenticate, especially passwords, needs to be protected at all times, and encryption is the standard method for protecting authentication data during transmission. Data used to authenticate can be passed to and from the web server for many reasons. Examples include data passed from a user to the web server through an HTTPS connection for authentication, the web server authenticating to a backend database for data retrieval and posting, and the web server authenticating to a clustered web server manager for an update.

Description

Data used to authenticate, especially passwords, needs to be protected at all times, and encryption is the standard method for protecting authentication data during transmission. Data used to authenticate can be passed to and from the web server for many reasons. Examples include data passed from a user to the web server through an HTTPS connection for authentication, the web server authenticating to a backend database for data retrieval and posting, and the web server authenticating to a clustered web server manager for an update.

ℹ️ Check
Review the <'INSTALL PATH'>\conf\httpd.conf file. Ensure SSL is enabled by looking at the "SSLVerifyClient" directive. If the value of "SSLVerifyClient" is not set to "require", this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Edit the <'INSTALL PATH'>\conf\httpd.conf file and set the value of "SSLVerifyClient" to "require". Restart the Apache service.