Title

The macOS system must be configured with audit log files group-owned by wheel. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

The audit service must be configured to create log files with the correct group ownership to prevent normal users from reading audit logs. Audit logs contain sensitive data about the system and users. If log files are set to be readable and writable only by root or administrative users with sudo, the risk is mitigated.

Check Content

To check the group ownership of the audit log files, run the following command: /usr/bin/sudo ls -le $(/usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/grep '^dir' /etc/security/audit_control | awk -F: '{print $2}') | /usr/bin/grep -v current The results should show the group owner (fourth column) to be "wheel". If they do not, this is a finding.

Fix Text

For any log file that returns an incorrect group owner, run the following command: /usr/bin/sudo chgrp wheel [audit log file] [audit log file] is the full path to the log file in question.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-230776r599842_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-230776

Group Title: SRG-OS-000057-GPOS-00027

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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