BaselineWatch
Desk
Your fleet and your work Fleetyour releases and the hardware they run onTriagewhat needs a decisionWatchlistthe products and platforms you runSaved searchesthe lists you come back to
This instance Sourceswhat is read, how often, under what termsDigestthe daily or weekly summary, and alerts
How it is drawn Appearancethe look and the colour schemeBrandingthe mark this instance wears
Owner sign-in

RHEL-09-232075 RHEL 9 /etc/passwd file must have mode 0644 or less permissive to prevent unauthorized access.

DISA STIG library V2R10
All changes in this version
first version loaded CAT II

Maps to CM-6 via CCI-000366

Title

RHEL 9 /etc/passwd file must have mode 0644 or less permissive to prevent unauthorized access.

Control

Verify that the "/etc/passwd" file has mode "0644" or less permissive with the following command: $ sudo stat -c "%a %n" /etc/passwd 644 /etc/passwd If a value of "0644" or less permissive is not returned, this is a finding.

Discussion

If the "/etc/passwd" file is writable by a group-owner or the world the risk of its compromise is increased. The file contains the list of accounts on the system and associated information, and protection of this file is critical for system security.

Related controls

CCI-000366

Fix

Change the mode of the file "/etc/passwd" to "0644" by running the following command: $ sudo chmod 0644 /etc/passwd