SV-244523r1137691: RHEL 8 operating systems must require authentication upon booting into emergency mode. | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 STIG SCAP Benchmark

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Assessment Title

Rule Text

RHEL 8 operating systems must require authentication upon booting into emergency mode.

Description

Discussion Text

If the system does not require valid root authentication before it boots into emergency or rescue mode, anyone who invokes emergency or rescue mode is granted privileged access to all files on the system.

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

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Not mappedCCI-000213

References

DPMS Target Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 DISA DPMS Target Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 2921

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.stig.rhel8os:def:244523
# RHEL 8 operating systems must require authentication upon booting into emergency mode.
# Per-module read mechanism curated from static teardown of DISA's SCC tool
# (SCAP Compliance Checker) -- see the SCC Automation Reference above.

# emergency.service config correct
# textfilecontent54_object (textfilecontent54_test)
test_1() {
  (sed -En 's/^ExecStart=(.*)$/\1/p' '/usr/lib/systemd/system/emergency.service') | grep -qxF '-/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sulogin-shell emergency'
}

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.stig.rhel8os:def:244523


if [ ! -f "/usr/lib/systemd/system/emergency.service" ]; then
  echo "PASS"
  exit 0
fi

content=$(cat "/usr/lib/systemd/system/emergency.service")
if [[ $content =~ ^ExecStart=-.*/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sulogin-shell\ emergency$ ]]; then
  echo "PASS"
  exit 0
else
  echo "FAIL"
  exit 1
fi

Remediation

Configure the system to require authentication upon booting into emergency mode by adding the following line to the "/usr/lib/systemd/system/emergency.service" file.

ExecStart=-/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sulogin-shell emergency