Title

The macOS system must set permissions on user home directories to prevent users from having access to read or modify another user's files. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Configuring the operating system to use the most restrictive permissions possible for user home directories helps to protect against inadvertent disclosures. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00228, SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00230

Check Content

To verify that permissions are set correctly on user home directories, use the following commands: ls -le /Users Should return a listing of the permissions of the root of every user account configured on the system. For each of the users, the permissions should be: "drwxr-xr-x+" with the user listed as the owner and the group listed as "staff". The plus(+) sign indicates an associated Access Control List, which should be: 0: group:everyone deny delete For every authorized user account, also run the following command: /usr/bin/sudo ls -le /Users/userid, where userid is an existing user. This command will return the permissions of all of the objects under the users' home directory. The permissions for each of the subdirectories should be: drwx------+ 0: group:everyone deny delete With the exception of the "Public" directory, whose permissions should match the following: drwxr-xr-x+ 0: group:everyone deny delete If the permissions returned by either of these checks differ from what is shown, this is a finding.

Fix Text

To ensure the appropriate permissions are set for each user on the system, run the following command: diskutil resetUserPermissions / userid, where userid is the user name for the user whose home directory permissions need to be repaired.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-230827r599842_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-230827

Group Title: SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00228

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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