Title

AIX system must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

This prevents attackers with physical access from trivially bypassing security on the machine and gaining root access. Such accesses are further prevented by configuring the bootloader password.

Check Content

Verify that the "root" account has a password assigned: # cut -d: -f1,2 /etc/passwd | grep root root:! If the "root" account is not listed with an "!", this is a finding.

Fix Text

Assign the "root" account a password using passwd command while logged on as "root": # passwd

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-215308r991589_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-215308

Group Title: SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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