V-271295

Discussion

Information systems are capable of providing a wide variety of functions and services. Some of the default functions and services may not be necessary to support essential organizational operations (e.g., key missions, functions). It is detrimental for applications to provide, or install by default, functionality exceeding requirements or mission objectives. Applications must adhere to the principles of least functionality by providing only essential capabilities. SQL Server may spawn additional external processes to execute procedures that are defined in the SQL Server but stored in external host files (external procedures). The spawned process used to execute the external procedure may operate within a different OS security context than SQL Server and provide unauthorized access to the host system. SQL Server is capable of providing a wide range of features and services. Some of the features and services, provided by default, may not be necessary, and enabling them could adversely affect the security of the system. The Remote Data Archive feature allows an export of local SQL Server data to an Azure SQL Database. An exploit to the SQL Server instance could result in a compromise of the host system and external SQL Server resources.

Check Content

To determine if [Remote Data Archive] is enabled, execute the following command:
SELECT name, value, value_in_use
FROM sys.configurations
WHERE name = 'Remote Data Archive'
 
If [value_in_use] is a [1], review the system documentation to determine whether the use of [Remote Data Archive] is approved. If it is not approved, this is a finding.