Title

All local initialization files must be owned by the home directorys user or root. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Local initialization files are used to configure the user's shell environment upon login. Malicious modification of these files could compromise accounts upon logon.

Check Content

Check the ownership of local initialization files. Procedure: # ls –a /<users home directory> | grep “^\.” | awk '{if ((!($1=="."))&&(!($1==".."))) print}' | xargs ls -ld If local initialization files are not owned by the home directory's user, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Change the ownership of the startup and login files in the user’s directory to the user or root, as appropriate. Examine each user’s home directory and verify all filenames beginning with “.” are owned by the owner of the directory or root. If they are not, use the chown command to change the owner to the user and research the reasons why the owners were not assigned as required. Procedure: # chown username .filename Document all changes.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-45151r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-904

Group Title: GEN001860

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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