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 -r ^PermitRootLogin /etc/ssh/sshd_config* If there is no result, or the result is set to "yes", this is a finding. If conflicting results are returned, 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-252478r858511_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-252478

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

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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