Title

There must be no .rhosts, .shosts, hosts.equiv, or shosts.equiv files on the system. (Cat I impact)

Discussion

The .rhosts, .shosts, hosts.equiv, and shosts.equiv files are used to configure host-based authentication for individual users or the system. Host-based authentication is not sufficient for preventing unauthorized access to the system.

Check Content

Check for the existence of the files. The .rhosts and .shosts files are stored in home directories. (If a user does not have a home directory assigned in /etc/passwd, the root directory (/) is assigned as a default home directory.) Procedure (the first command is five lines long): # for homedir in `cut -d: -f6 /etc/passwd | awk '$1 == "" {$1 = "/"} {print $1}'`; do ls -l $homedir/.rhosts; ls -l $homedir/.shosts; done # ls -l /etc/hosts.equiv # ls -l /etc/ssh/shosts.equiv If .rhosts, .shosts, hosts.equiv, or shosts.equiv are found, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Remove the .rhosts, .shosts, hosts.equiv, and/or shosts.equiv files.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-226563r603265_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-226563

Group Title: SRG-OS-000480

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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