Title

The macOS system must require individuals to be authenticated with an individual authenticator prior to using a group authenticator. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Administrator users must never log in directly as root. To assure individual accountability and prevent unauthorized access, logging in as root over a remote connection must be disabled. Administrators should only run commands as root after first authenticating with their individual user names and passwords.

Check Content

If SSH is not being used, this is Not Applicable. To check if SSH has root logins enabled, run the following command: /usr/bin/grep ^PermitRootLogin /etc/ssh/sshd_config If there is no result, or the result is set to "yes", this is a finding.

Fix Text

To ensure that "PermitRootLogin" is disabled by sshd, run the following command: /usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/sed -i.bak 's/^[\#]*PermitRootLogin.*/PermitRootLogin no/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-230786r599842_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-230786

Group Title: SRG-OS-000109-GPOS-00056

Expert Comments

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