SV-37905r2: The SSH daemon must not allow rhosts RSA authentication. | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Security Technical Implementation Guide

Loading benchmark…

Assessment Title

Rule Text

The SSH daemon must not allow rhosts RSA authentication.

Description

Discussion Text

If SSH permits rhosts RSA authentication, a user may be able to log in based on the keys of the host originating the request and not any user-specific authentication.

How this relates to the STIG checklist: STIG vs SCAP benchmark.

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Not mappedCCI-000366CCE-4370-3

Additional Details

Responsibility

System Administrator

References

DPMS Target Red Hat 5 DISA DPMS Target Red Hat 5 2154

SCC Automation Reference

The reconstructed evaluation script behind this rule's OVAL check(s) — every module a compound check combines, with this rule's own concrete values and DISA's SCC tool's real per-module mechanism curated from static teardown of SCC releases.

#!/bin/bash
# Reconstructed from oval:mil.disa.fso.rhel11:def:358
# The SSH daemon must not allow rhosts RSA authentication.
# Per-module read mechanism curated from static teardown of DISA's SCC tool
# (SCAP Compliance Checker) -- see the SCC Automation Reference above.

# Default comment, please change
# textfilecontent54_object (textfilecontent54_test)
test_1() {
  grep -Pq '^[R]hosts[R][S][A][A]uthentication[ ]no$' '/etc/ssh/sshd_config' &>/dev/null
}

if ! test_1; then
  echo "PASS"
else
  echo "FAIL"
fi

Assessment Script Powered by AISandbox-executed

A standalone Shell script to assess this control automatically. Review before running it in your environment.

Syntax-checked and actually executed in an isolated sandbox (not the real system this checks) — confirmed to run without errors.

#!/bin/sh
# OVAL Definition: oval:mil.disa.fso.rhel11:def:358

file="/etc/ssh/sshd_config"
if [ ! -f "$file" ]; then echo "PASS"; exit 0; fi
grep -q "^RhostsRSAAuthentication[ ]no$" "$file" && echo "PASS" || echo "FAIL"
exit 0

Remediation

Edit the SSH daemon configuration and add or edit the "RhostsRSAAuthentication" setting value to "no".

Restart the SSH daemon.
# /sbin/service sshd restart