Remediating Security Exposures Using the Vulnerability Service and Ansible Playbooks

Red Hat Insights 2023

Automate the Remediation of CVE Security Vulnerabilities in RHEL Environments

Red Hat Customer Content Services

Abstract

Remediate CVE security vulnerabilities in RHEL environments using the vulnerability service.
Red Hat is committed to replacing problematic language in our code, documentation, and web properties. We are beginning with these four terms: master, slave, blacklist, and whitelist. Because of the enormity of this endeavor, these changes will be implemented gradually over several upcoming releases. For more details, see our CTO Chris Wright's message.

Chapter 1. Creating Ansible Playbooks to remediate CVE exposures on RHEL systems

The following documentation guides vulnerability service users in creating Ansible Playbooks to automate the remediation of CVEs on RHEL systems.

There are two approaches that vulnerability service users can use, when selecting issues for remediation.

  • Remediate multiple CVEs that affect a single system.
  • Remediate multiple systems affected by a single CVE.

Chapter 2. Remediating multiple CVEs affecting a single system

Complete the following steps to remediate CVE exposures on a single system.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux > Vulnerability > Systems tab and log in if necessary.
  2. Search for a system by name or scroll through the list to locate the system you wish to remediate.
  3. Click on the system name to view system details and list of CVE exposures.
  4. Using the checkboxes to the left of the CVE name, select CVEs to repair on this system and click Remediate.
  5. Select Add to existing playbook or Create new playbook and provide a name, depending on your preference. Click Next.
  6. Verify that the information in the Remediation review is correct. By default, autoreboot is enabled. You may click on Turn off autoreboot if desired, then click Submit.
  7. Locate your playbook in Remediations and download the yaml file.
  8. Add the yaml file to your Ansible workflow.

Chapter 3. Remediating multiple systems affected by a single CVE

Complete the following steps, to remediate systems of a single CVE exposure.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux > Vulnerability > CVEs tab and log in if necessary.
  2. Click on a CVE to view more information about the individual CVE and scroll down to view all exposed systems.
  3. Select systems to remediate and click Remediate.
  4. Select Add to existing playbook or Create new playbook and provide a name, depending on your preference. Click Next.
  5. Verify that the information in the Remediation review is correct. By default, autoreboot is enabled. You may click on Turn off autoreboot if desired, then click Submit.
  6. Locate your playbook in Remediations and download the yaml file.
  7. Add the yaml file to your Ansible workflow.

Chapter 4. Reference materials

To learn more about the vulnerability service, or the other Red Hat Insights for Red Hat Enterprise Linux services, the following resources might also be of interest:

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