Title

Cron and crontab directories must be owned by root or bin. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Incorrect ownership of the cron or crontab directories could permit unauthorized users the ability to alter cron jobs and run automated jobs as privileged users. Failure to give ownership of cron or crontab directories to root or to bin provides the designated owner and unauthorized users with the potential to access sensitive information or change the system configuration which could weaken the system's security posture.

Check Content

Check the owner of the crontab directory. # ls -ld /var/spool/cron/crontabs If the owner of the crontab directory is not root or bin, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Change the owner of the crontab directory. # chown root /var/spool/cron/crontabs

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-226624r603265_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-226624

Group Title: SRG-OS-000480

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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