Title

The cron.deny file must be group-owned by root, bin, or sys. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Cron daemon control files restrict the scheduling of automated tasks and must be protected. Unauthorized modification of the cron.deny file could result in Denial of Service to authorized cron users or could provide unauthorized users with the ability to run cron jobs.

Check Content

Check the group ownership of the file. Procedure: # ls -lL /etc/cron.d/cron.deny If the file is not group-owned by root, bin, or sys, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Change the group ownership of the file to root, sys, or bin. Procedure: # chgrp root /etc/cron.d/cron.deny

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-227764r603266_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-227764

Group Title: SRG-OS-000480

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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