SV-258059r991589: The root account must be the only account having unrestricted access to RHEL 9 system. | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 STIG SCAP Benchmark

Loading benchmark…

Assessment Title

Rule Text

The root account must be the only account having unrestricted access to RHEL 9 system.

Description

Discussion Text

An account has root authority if it has a user identifier (UID) of "0". Multiple accounts with a UID of "0" afford more opportunity for potential intruders to guess a password for a privileged account. Proper configuration of sudo is recommended to afford multiple system administrators access to root privileges in an accountable manner.

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

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Not mappedCCI-000366

References

DPMS Target Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 DISA DPMS Target Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 5551

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.rhel9os:def:258059
# The root account must be the only account having unrestricted access to RHEL 9 system.
# Per-module read mechanism curated from static teardown of DISA's SCC tool
# (SCAP Compliance Checker) -- see the SCC Automation Reference above.

# Only the root account has a UID of zero.
# password_object (password_test)
test_1() {
  [ "$(getent passwd 'root' | cut -d: -f3)" -ne 0 ]
}

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.rhel9os:def:258059
if [ ! -f /etc/passwd ]; then echo "PASS"; exit 0; fi
for user in $(cat /etc/passwd); do
  user_id=$(echo "$user" | cut -d: -f3)
  if [ "$user_id" -eq 0 ] && [ "$(echo "$user" | cut -d: -f1)" != "root" ]; then echo "FAIL"; exit 1; fi
done
echo "PASS"
exit 0

Remediation

Change the UID of any account on the system, other than root, that has a UID of "0". 

If the account is associated with system commands or applications, the UID should be changed to one greater than "0" but less than "1000". Otherwise, assign a UID of greater than "1000" that has not already been assigned.