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Apache Web Server

Hardening and Security
Guide
INTRODUCTION

The Web Server is a crucial part of web-based applications.

Apache Web Server is often placed at the edge of the
network hence it becomes one of the most vulnerable
services to attack.

Having default configuration supply much sensitive

information which may help hacker to prepare for an attack
the web server.

The majority of web application attacks are through XSS,

Info Leakage, Session Management and PHP Injection
attacks which are due to weak programming code and
failure to sanitize web application infrastructure.

According to the security vendor Acunetix, 84% of tested

applications have one or more vulnerabilities. 

This practical guide provides you the necessary skill set to

secure Apache Web Server.

In this course, we will talk about how to Harden & Secure

Apache Web Server on Unix platform.
1.1 Audience
This is designed for Middleware Administrator, Application Support, System Analyst, or anyone
working or eager to learn Hardening & Security guidelines.

Fair knowledge of Apache Web Server & UNIX command is mandatory. 

1.1 Notes
We require some tool to examine HTTP Headers for some of the implementation verification. There
are two ways to do this.

1. Use browser inbuilt developer tools to inspect the HTTP headers. Usually, it’s under Network
tab
2. Use online HTTP response header checker tool

2. Information Leakage
In default Apache configuration you would have much sensitive information disclosures, which can be
used to prepare for an attack.

It’s one of the most critical tasks for an administrator to understand and secure them.  

2.1 Remove Server Version Banner

I would say this is one of the first things to consider, as you don’t want to expose what web server
version you are using. Exposing version means you are helping hacker to speedy the reconnaissance
process.

The default configuration will expose Apache Version and OS type as shown below.

Implementation
 Go to $Web_Server/conf folder
Modify httpd.conf by using the vi editor
Add the following directive and save the httpd.conf
ServerTokens Prod
ServerSignature Off
Restart apache
ServerSignature will remove the version information from the page generated by apache web
server.

ServerTokens will change Header to production only, i.e. Apache

Verification

As you can see below, version & OS information is gone.

2.2 Disable directory browser listing

Disable directory listing in a browser, so the visitor doesn’t see what all file and folders you have
under root or subdirectory.

Let’s test how does it look like in default settings.

Go to $Web_Server/htdocs directory
Create a folder and few files inside that
# mkdir test
# touch hi
# touch hello
Now, let’s try to access Apache by http://localhost/test
As you could see it reveals what all file/folders you have which are probably you don’t want to expose.

Implementation

Go to $Web_Server/conf directory
 Open httpd.conf using vi
 Search for Directory and change Options directive to None or –Indexes
<Directory /opt/apache/htdocs>
Options -Indexes
</Directory>
(or)

<Directory /opt/apache/htdocs>
Options None
</Directory>
Restart Apache
Note: if you have multiple Directory directives in your environment, you should consider doing the
same for all.

Verification

Now, let’s try to access Apache by http://localhost/test

As you could see, it displays a forbidden error instead of showing test folder listing.

2.3 Etag
It allows remote attackers to obtain sensitive information like inode number, multipart MIME
boundary, and child process through Etag header.

To prevent this vulnerability, let’s implement it as below. This is required to fix for PCI compliance.

Implementation

Go to $Web_Server/conf directory
Add the following directive and save the httpd.conf
FileETag None
Restart apache

3. Authorization

3.1 Run Apache from a non-privileged account

Default apache configuration is to run as nobody or daemon. It’s good to use a separate non-
privileged user for Apache.

The idea here is to protect other services running in case of any security hole.  

Implementation

Create a user and group called apache

# groupadd apache
# useradd –G apache apache
Change apache installation directory ownership to a newly created non-privileged user
# chown –R apache:apache /opt/apache
 Go to $Web_Server/conf
 Modify httpd.conf using vi
 Search for User & Group Directive and change as non-privileged account apache
User apache
Group apache
 Save the httpd.conf
 Restart Apache
Verification
grep for running http process and ensure it’s running with apache user

# ps –ef |grep http

You should see one process is running with root. That’s because Apache is listening on port 80 and it
has to be started with root. 

3.2 Protect binary and configuration directory permission

By default, permission for binary and configuration is 755 that means any user on a server can view
the configuration. You can disallow another user to get into conf and bin folder.

Implementation

Go to the $Web_Server directory

Change permission of bin and conf folder
# chmod –R 750 bin conf

3.3 System Settings Protection

In a default installation, users can override apache configuration using .htaccess. if you want to stop
users from changing your apache server settings, you can add to AllowOverride None as shown
below.

This must be done at the root level.

Implementation

Go to $Web_Server/conf directory
 Open httpd.conf using vi
 Search for Directory at the root level
<Directory /> Options -Indexes AllowOverride None
</Directory>
 Save the httpd.conf
 Restart Apache

3.4 HTTP Request Methods

HTTP 1.1 protocol support many request methods which may not be required and some of them are
having potential risk.

Typically you may just need GET, HEAD, POST request methods in a web application, which can be
configured in the respective Directory directive.

Default apache configuration support OPTIONS, GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, CONNECT
method in HTTP 1.1 protocol.
Implementation

 Go to $Web_Server/conf directory

 Open httpd.conf using vi
Search for Directory and add the following
<LimitExcept GET POST HEAD>
deny from all
</LimitExcept>
Restart Apache

4. Web Application Security

Apache web server misconfiguration or not hardened properly can exploit web application. It’s critical
to harden your web server configuration.

4.1 Cookies

4.1.1 Disable Trace HTTP Request

By default Trace method is enabled in Apache web server.

Having this enabled can allow Cross Site Tracing attack and potentially giving an option to a hacker to
steal cookie information. Let’s see how it looks like in default configuration.

 Do a telnet web server IP with listening port

 Make a TRACE request as shown below
#telnet localhost 80
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
TRACE / HTTP/1.1 Host: test
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 02:13:24 GMT
Server: Apache
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: message/http 20
TRACE / HTTP/1.1
Host: test 0
Connection closed by foreign host.#
As you could see in above TRACE request, it has responded to my query. Let’s disable it and test it.

Implementation

 Go to $Web_Server/conf directory

Add the following directive and save the httpd.conf
TraceEnable off

 Restart apache
Verification

Do a telnet web server IP with listen port and make a TRACE request as shown below
#telnet localhost 80
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
TRACE / HTTP/1.1 Host: test
HTTP/1.1 405 Method Not Allowed
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 02:18:27 GMT
Server: Apache Allow:Content-Length: 223Content-Type: text/html; charset=
<p>The requested method TRACE is not allowed for the URL /.</p> </body></
Connection closed by foreign host.#

As you could see in above TRACE request, it has blocked my request with HTTP 405 Method Not
Allowed.

Now, this web server doesn’t allow TRACE request and help in blocking Cross Site Tracing attack.

4.1.2 Set cookie with HttpOnly and Secure flag

You can mitigate most of the common Cross Site Scripting attack using HttpOnly and Secure flag in a
cookie. Without having HttpOnly and Secure, it is possible to steal or manipulate web application
session and cookies and it’s dangerous.

Implementation

 Ensure mod_headers.so is enabled in your httpd.conf

 Go to $Web_Server/conf directory
 Add the following directive and save the httpd.conf
Header edit Set-Cookie ^(.*)$ $1;HttpOnly;Secure
 Restart apache

4.2 Clickjacking Attack

Clickjacking is a well-known web application vulnerabilities. 

Implementation:

 Ensure mod_headers.so is enabled in your httpd.conf

 Go to $Web_Server/conf directory
 Add the following directive and save the httpd.conf
Header always append X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN
 Restart apache
Verification

X-Frame-Options also support two more options which I explained here.

4.3 Server Side Include

Server Side Include (SSI) has a risk of increasing the load on the server. If you have shared the
environment and heavy traffic web applications you should consider disabling SSI by adding Includes
in Options directive. 

SSI attack allows the exploitation of a web application by injecting scripts in HTML pages or executing
codes remotely.

Implementation

Go to $Web_Server/conf directory
 Open httpd.conf using vi
 Search for Directory and add Includes in Options directive
<Directory /opt/apache/htdocs>
Options –Indexes -Includes
Order allow,denyAllow from all
</Directory>
Restart Apache
Note: if you have multiple Directory directives in your environment, you should consider doing the
same for all.

4.4 X-XSS Protection

Cross Site Scripting (XSS) protection can be bypassed in many browsers. You can apply this
protection for a web application if it was disabled by the user. This is used by a majority of giant web
companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.

Implementation

Go to $Web_Server/conf directory
Open httpd.conf using vi and add following Header directive
Header set X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block"
 Restart Apache
Verification

As you can see, XSS-Protection is the injected in the response header.

4.5 Disable HTTP 1.0 Protocol

When we talk about security, we should protect as much as we can. So why do we use older HTTP
version of the protocol, let’s disable them as well?

HTTP 1.0 has a security weakness related to session hijacking. We can disable this by using the
mod_rewrite module.

Implementation

Ensure to load the mod_rewrite module in httpd.conf file

 Enable RewriteEngine directive as following and add Rewrite condition to allow only HTTP
1.1
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} !HTTP/1.1$
RewriteRule .* - [F]

4.6 Timeout value configuration

By default, Apache time-out value is 300 seconds, which can be a victim of Slow Loris attack and DoS.
To mitigate this you can lower the timeout value to maybe 60 seconds.

Implementation

Go to $Web_Server/conf directory
Open httpd.conf using vi
 Add the following in httpd.conf
Timeout 60

5. SSL
Having SSL is an additional layer of security you are adding into Web Application. However, the
default SSL configuration leads to certain vulnerabilities and you should consider tweaking those
configurations.

5.1 SSL Key

Breaching SSL key is hard, but not impossible. It’s just matter of computational power and time.

As you might know, using a 2009-era PC cracking away for around 73 days you can reverse engineer
a 512-bit key.

So the higher key length you have, the more complicated it becomes to break SSL key. The majority
of giant Web Companies use 2048 bit key, as below so why don’t we?

 Outlook.com
 Microsoft.com
  Live.com
 Skype.com
 Apple.com
 Yahoo.com
 Bing.com
 Hotmail.com
 Twitter.com
Implementation

 You can use openssl to generate CSR with 2048 bit as below.
openssl req -out geekflare.csr -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout geekflare

It will generate a CSR which you will need to send to a certificate authority to sign it. Once you receive
the signed certificate file, you can add them in httpd-ssl.conf file

SSLCertificateFile #Certificate signed by authority

SSLCertificateChainFile #Certificate signer given by authority
SSLCertificateKeyFile #Key file which you generated above
Restart Apache web server and try to access the URL with https

5.2 SSL Cipher

SSL Cipher is an encryption algorithm, which is used as a key between two computers over the
Internet. Data encryption is the process of converting plain text into secret ciphered codes.

It’s based on your web server SSL Cipher configuration the data encryption will take place.

So it’s important to configure SSL Cipher, which is stronger and not vulnerable. 

Implementation:

Go to $Web_Server/conf/extra folder
 Modify SSLCipherSuite directive in httpd-ssl.conf as below to accept only higher
encryption algorithms
SSLCipherSuite HIGH:!MEDIUM:!aNULL:!MD5:!RC4
 Save the configuration file and restart apache server
Note: if you have many weak ciphers in your SSL auditing report, you can quickly reject them adding
at the  ! beginning .

5.3 Disable SSL v2 & v3

SSL v2 & v3 has many security flaws, and if you are working towards penetration test or PCI
compliance, then you are expected to close security finding to disable SSL v2/v3.

Any SSL v2/v3 communication may be vulnerable to a Man-in-The-Middle attack that could allow data
tampering or disclosure.

Let’s implement apache web server to accept only latest TLS and reject SSL v2/v3 connection request.

Implementation

Go to $Web_Server/conf/extra folder
Modify SSLProtocol directive in httpd-ssl.conf as below to accept only TLS 1.0+
SSLProtocol –ALL +TLSv1 +TLSv1.1 +TLSv1.2
Once you are done with SSL configuration, it’s a good idea to test your web application with online
SSL/TLS Certificate tool to find any configuration error.

6. Mod Security
Mod Security is an open-source Web Application Firewall, which you can use with Apache.

It comes as a module which you have to compile and install. If you can’t afford a commercial web
application firewall, this would be a good choice to go for it. Mod Security says:

In order to provide generic web applications protection, the Core Rules use the following techniques:

HTTP Protection – detecting violations of the HTTP protocol and a locally defined usage
policy
Real-time Blacklist Lookups – utilizes 3rd Party IP Reputation
Web-based Malware Detection – identifies malicious web content by check against the
Google Safe Browsing API.
HTTP Denial of Service Protections – defense against HTTP Flooding and Slow HTTP DoS
Attacks.
Common Web Attacks Protection – detecting common web application security attack
Automation Detection – Detecting bots, crawlers, scanners and another malicious surface
activity
Integration with AV Scanning for File Uploads – identifies malicious files uploaded
through the web application.
Tracking Sensitive Data – Tracks Credit Card usage and blocks leakages.
Trojan Protection – Detecting access to Trojans horses.
Identification of Application Defects – alerts on application misconfigurations.
Error Detection and Hiding – Disguising error messages sent by the server.

6.1 Download & Installation

Following prerequisites must be installed on the server where you wish to use Mod Security with
Apache. If anyone of these doesn’t exist then Mod Security compilation will fail. You may use yum
install on Linux or Centos to install these packages.

apache 2.x or higher

libpcre package
 libxml2 package
liblua package
libcurl package
 libapr and libapr-util package
 mod_unique_id module bundled with Apache web server
Now, let’s download the latest stable version of Mod Security 2.7.5 from here

Transfer downloaded a file to /opt/apache

Extract modsecurity-apache_2.7.5.tar.gz
# gunzip –c modsecurity-apache_2.7.5.tar.gz | tar xvf –
Go to extracted folder modsecurity-apache_2.7.5
# cd modsecurity-apache_2.7.5
Run the configure script including apxs path to existing Apache
# ./configure –with-apxs=/opt/apache/bin/apxs
Compile & install with make script
# make
# make install
Once the installation is done, you would see mod_security2.so in modules folder under
/opt/apache
Now this concludes, you have installed Mod Security module in existing Apache web server.

6.2 Configuration
In order to use Mod security feature with Apache, we have to load mod security module in
httpd.conf. The mod_unique_id module is a pre-requisite for Mod Security.

This module provides an environment variable with a unique identifier for each request, which is
tracked and used by Mod Security.

Add following a line to load module for Mod Security in httpd.conf and save the
configuration file
LoadModule unique_id_module modules/mod_unique_id.so
LoadModule security2_module modules/mod_security2.so
 Restart apache web server
Mod Security is now installed!

Next thing you have to do is to install Mod Security core rule to take full advantage of its feature.

Latest Core Rule can be downloaded from following a link, which is

free.https://github.com/SpiderLabs/owasp-modsecurity-crs/zipball/master
 Copy downloaded core rule zip to /opt/apache/conf folder
Unzip core rule file
You may wish to rename the folder to something short and easy to remember. In this
example, I will rename to crs.
 Go to crs folder and rename modsecurity_crs10_setup.conf.example to
modsecurity_crs10_setup.conf
Now, let’s enable these rules to get it working with Apache web server.

 Add the following in httpd.conf

<IfModule security2_module>
Include conf/crs/modsecurity_crs_10_setup.confInclude conf/crs/base_rules
</IfModule>

In the above configuration, we are loading Mod Security main configuration

file modsecurity_crs_10_setup.conf and base rules base_rules/*.conf provided by Mod Security
Core Rules to protect web applications.

 Restart apache web server

You have successfully configured Mod Security with Apache!

Well done. Now, Apache Web server is protected by Mod Security web application firewall.

6.3 Getting Started

Let’s get it started with some of the critical configurations in Mod Security to harden & secure web
applications.

In this section, we will do all configuration modification

in /opt/apache/conf/crs/modsecurity_crs_10_setup.conf.

We will refer /opt/apache/conf/crs/modsecurity_crs_10_setup.conf as setup.conf in this section

for example purpose.

It’s important to understand what are the OWASP rules are provided for free. There are two types of
rules provided by OWASP.

Base Rules – these rules are heavily tested, and probably false alarm ratio is less.

Experimental Rules – these rules are for an experimental purpose, and you may have the high false
alarm. It’s important to configure, test and implement in UAT before using these in a production
environment.  

Optional Rules – these optional rules may not be suitable for the entire environment. Based on your
requirement you may use them.
If you are looking for CSRF, User tracking, Session hijacking, etc. protection then you may consider
using optional rules. We have the base, optional and experimental rules after extracting the
downloaded crs zip file from OWASP download page.

These rules configuration file is available in crs/base_rules, crs/optional_rules and

crs/experimental_rules folder. Let’s get familiar with some of the base rules.

modsecurity_crs_20_protocol_violations.conf: This rule is protecting from Protocol

vulnerabilities like response splitting, request smuggling, using non-allowed protocol (HTTP
1.0).
modsecurity_crs_21_protocol_anomalies.conf: This is to protect from a request, which is
missing with Host, Accept, User-Agent in the header.
modsecurity_crs_23_request_limits.conf: This rule has the dependency on application
specific like request size, upload size, a length of a parameter, etc.
modsecurity_crs_30_http_policy.conf: This is to configure and protect allowed or
disallowed method like CONNECT, TRACE, PUT, DELETE, etc.
modsecurity_crs_35_bad_robots.conf:Detect malicious robots
modsecurity_crs_40_generic_attacks.conf:This is to protect from OS command injection,
remote file inclusion, etc.
modsecurity_crs_41_sql_injection_attacks.conf:This rule to protect SQL and blind SQL
inject request.
modsecurity_crs_41_xss_attacks.conf:Protection from Cross-Site Scripting request.
modsecurity_crs_42_tight_security.conf:Directory traversal detection and protection.
modsecurity_crs_45_trojans.conf: This rule to detect generic file management output,
uploading of HTTP backdoor page, known signature.
modsecurity_crs_47_common_exceptions.conf: This is used as an exception mechanism
to remove common false positives that may be encountered such as Apache internal dummy
connection, SSL pinger, etc.

6.3.1 Logging
Logging is one of the first things to configure so you can have logs created for what Mod Security is
doing. There are two types of logging available; Debug & Audit log.

Debug Log: this is to duplicate the Apache error, warning and notice messages from the error log.

Audit Log: this is to write the transaction logs that are marked by Mod Security rule Mod Security
gives you the flexibility to configure Audit, Debug or both logging. By default configuration will write
both logs. However, you can change based on your requirement. The log is controlled in
SecDefaultAction directive. Let’s look at default logging configuration in setup.conf

SecDefaultAction “phase:1,deny,log”
To log Debug, Audit log – use “log” To log only audit log – use “nolog,auditlog” To log only debug log
– use “log,noauditlog” You can specify the Audit Log location to be stored which is controlled by
SecAuditLog directive.

Let’s write audit log into /opt/apache/logs/modsec_audit.log by adding as shown

below.

Implementation

Add SecAuditLog directive in setup.conf and restart Apache Web Server

SecAuditLog /opt/apache/logs/modsec_audit.log

After the restart, you should see modsec_audit.log getting generated

6.3.2 Enable Rule Engine

By default Engine, Rule is Off that means if you don’t enable Rule Engine you are not utilizing all the
advantages of Mod Security.

Rule Engine enabling or disabling is controlled by SecRuleEngine directive.

Implementation

Add SecRuleEngine directive in setup.conf and restart Apache Web Server

SecRuleEngine On
There are three values for SecRuleEngine:

On – to enable Rule Engine

Off – to disable Rule Engine
DetectionOnly – enable Rule Engine but never executes any actions like block, deny, drop,
allow, proxy or redirect
Once Rule Engine is on – Mod Security is ready to protect with some of the common attack types.

6.3.3 Common Attack Type Protection

Now web server is ready to protect with common attack types like XSS, SQL Injection, Protocol
Violation, etc. as we have installed Core Rule and turned on Rule Engine. Let’s test a few of them.

XSS Attack:-

 Open Firefox and access your application and put a <script> tag at the end of URL
 Monitor the modsec_audit.log in apache/logs folder
You will notice Mod Security blocks request as it contains <script> tag which is the root of XSS attack.
Directory Traversal Attack:- Directory traversal attacks can create a lot of damage by taking
advantage of this vulnerabilities and access system related file. Ex – /etc/passwd, .htaccess, etc.

 Open Firefox and access your application with directory traversal

 Monitor the modsec_audit.log in apache/logs folder
http://localhost/?../.../boot
You will notice Mod Security blocks request as it contains directory traversal.

6.3.4 Change Server Banner

Earlier in this guide, you learned how to remove Apache and OS type, version help of ServerTokens
directive.

Let’s go one step ahead, how about keeping server name whatever you wish? It’s possible with
SecServerSignature directive in Mod Security. You see it’s interesting.

Note: to use Mod Security to manipulate Server Banner from a header, you must set ServerTokesn to
Full in httpd.conf of Apache web server.  

Implementation

Add SecServerSignature directive with your desired server name in setup.conf and restart
Apache Web Server
SecServerSignature YourServerName
Ex:

[/opt/apache/conf/crs] #grep SecServer modsecurity_crs_10_setup.conf

SecServerSignature geekflare.com
[/opt/apache/conf/crs] #

7. General Configuration
We will talk about some of the general configuration as best practice.

7.1 Configure Listen

When you have multiple interfaces and IP’s on a single server, it’s recommended to have Listen
directive configured with absolute IP and Port number.

When you leave apache configuration to Listen on all IP’s with some port number, it may create the
problem in forwarding HTTP request to some other web server. This is quite common in the shared
environment.

Implementation
 Configure Listen directive in httpd.conf with absolute IP and port as the shown example
below
Listen 10.10.10.1:80

7.2 Access Logging

It’s essential to configure access log properly in your web server. Some of the important parameter to
capture in the log would be the time taken to serve the request, SESSION ID.

By default, Apache is not configured to capture these data. You got to configure them manually as
follows.

Implementation

To capture time taken to serve the request and SESSION ID in an access log
 Add %T & %sessionID in httpd.conf under LogFormat directive
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t "%{sessionID}C" "%r" %>s %b %T" common
You can refer http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_log_config.html for a complete list of
parameter supported in LogFormat directive in Apache Web Server.

7.3 Disable Loading unwanted modules

If you have compiled and installed with all modules, then there are high chances you will have many
modules loaded in Apache, which may not be required.

Best practice is to configure Apache with required modules in your web applications. Following
modules have security concerns, and you might be interested in disabling in httpd.conf of Apache
Web Server.

WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) This module allows remote clients to

manipulate files on the server and subject to various denial-of-service attacks. To disable comment
following in httpd.conf

#LoadModule dav_module modules/mod_dav.so

#LoadModule dav_fs_module modules/mod_dav_fs.so
#Include conf/extra/httpd-dav.conf
Info Module The mod_info module can leak sensitive information using .htaccess once this module is
loaded. To disable comment following in httpd.conf

#LoadModule info_module modules/mod_info.so

Reference: This wouldn’t be possible without guidance from the following link:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/
http://www.modsecurity.org/documentation/
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_ModSecurity_Core_Rule_Set_Project
So that was some of the best practices you can use to secure your Apache web server.

If you are new to Apache HTTP, then I would recommend taking Apache HTTP administration course.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hey,

My name is Chandan and I hope this guide helps you in securing Apache HTTP
server from common online vulnerabilities.

Let's be in touch.

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