Title

Public directories must be the only world-writable directories and world-writable files must be located only in public directories. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

World-writable files and directories make it easy for a malicious user to place potentially compromising files on the system. The only authorized public directories are those temporary directories supplied with the system or those designed to be temporary file repositories. The setting is normally reserved for directories used by the system and by users for temporary file storage (e.g., /tmp) and for directories requiring global read/write access.

Check Content

Check the system for world-writable files and directories. Procedure: # find / -perm -2 -a \( -type d -o -type f \) -exec ls -ld {} \; If any world-writable files or directories are located, except those required for proper system or application operation, such as /tmp and /dev/null, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Remove or change the mode for any world-writable file or directory on the system that is not required to be world-writable. Procedure: # chmod o-w <file/directory> Document all changes.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-1010r3_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-1010

Group Title: GEN002480

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.