Title

The root account must be the only account having a UID of 0. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

An account has root authority if it has a UID of 0. Multiple accounts with a UID of 0 afford more opportunity for potential intruders to guess a password for a privileged account. Proper configuration of sudo is recommended to afford multiple system administrators access to root privileges in an accountable manner.

Check Content

To list all password file entries for accounts with UID 0, run the following command: # awk -F: '($3 == 0) {print}' /etc/passwd This should print only one line, for the user root. If any account other than root has a UID of 0, this is a finding.

Fix Text

If any account other than root has a UID of 0, this misconfiguration should be investigated and the accounts other than root should be removed or have their UID changed.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-217870r603264_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-217870

Group Title: SRG-OS-000480

Expert Comments

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