Title

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

Discussion

If an account has a UID of 0, it has root authority. Multiple accounts with a UID of 0 afford more opportunity for potential intruders to guess a password for a privileged account.

Check Content

Check the system for duplicate UID 0 assignments by listing all accounts assigned UID 0. Procedure: # cat /etc/passwd | awk -F":" '{print$1":"$3":"}' | grep ":0:" If any accounts other than root are assigned UID 0, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Remove or change the UID of accounts other than root that have UID 0.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-44900r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-773

Group Title: GEN000880

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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