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APPL-26-001150 The macOS system must disable password authentication for SSH.

DISA STIG library V1R4
All changes in this version
first version loaded CAT I

Maps to IA-2(1), IA-2(2), IA-2(6), IA-2(8), IA-5(2), MA-4 via CCI-000186, CCI-000765, CCI-000766, CCI-001941, CCI-000877, CCI-004046

Title

The macOS system must disable password authentication for SSH.

Control

Verify the macOS system is configured to disable password authentication for SSH with the following command: /usr/sbin/sshd -G | /usr/bin/grep -Ec '^(passwordauthentication\s+no|kbdinteractiveauthentication\s+no)' If the result is not "2", this is a finding.

Discussion

If remote login through SSH is enabled, password-based authentication must be disabled for user login. All users must go through multifactor authentication to prevent unauthenticated access and potential compromise to the system. Note: /etc/ssh/sshd_config will be automatically modified to its original state following any update or major upgrade to the operating system. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000067-GPOS-00035, SRG-OS-000105-GPOS-00052, SRG-OS-000106-GPOS-00053, SRG-OS-000107-GPOS-00054, SRG-OS-000108-GPOS-00055, SRG-OS-000112-GPOS-00057, SRG-OS-000125-GPOS-00065, SRG-OS-000375-GPOS-00160

Related controls

CCI-000186, CCI-000765, CCI-000766, CCI-000877, CCI-001941, CCI-004046

Fix

Configure the macOS system to disable password authentication for SSH with the following command: include_dir=$(/usr/bin/awk '/^Include/ {print $2}' /etc/ssh/sshd_config | /usr/bin/tr -d '*') if [[ -z $include_dir ]]; then /usr/bin/sed -i.bk "1s/.*/Include \/etc\/ssh\/sshd_config.d\/\*/" /etc/ssh/sshd_config fi echo "passwordauthentication no" >> "${include_dir}01-mscp-sshd.conf" echo "kbdinteractiveauthentication no" >> "${include_dir}01-mscp-sshd.conf" for file in $(ls ${include_dir}); do if [[ "$file" == "100-macos.conf" ]]; then continue fi if [[ "$file" == "01-mscp-sshd.conf" ]]; then break fi /bin/mv ${include_dir}${file} ${include_dir}20-${file} done