Apple macOS 15 (Sequoia) Security Technical Implementation Guide

The Apple macOS 15 (Sequoia) Security Technical Implementation Guide (V1 R8) has 160 STIG checks. New to STIG checklists? Read What is a STIG checklist?, CKL vs CKLB, and STIG vs SCAP benchmark.

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Severity

Version

V1 · R8

CurrentPublished Wed Sep 30 2026

The macOS system must configure audit retention to seven days.

Apple macOS 15 (Sequoia) Security Technical Implementation Guide

Assessment Title

Rule Text

The macOS system must configure audit retention to seven days.

Description

Discussion Text

The audit service must be configured to require that records be kept for an organizational-defined value before deletion unless the system uses a central audit record storage facility.

When "expire-after" is set to "7d", the audit service will not delete audit logs until the log data criteria is met.

New to STIG checklists? Read What is a STIG checklist? and CKL vs CKLB.

Objective

V-268467

Rule

SV-268467r1034341_rule

Severity

low

Rule Version

APPL-15-001029

Documentable

false

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Rev 5

Assessment Procedure

Check Text

Verify the macOS system is configured to set audit retention to seven days with the following command:

/usr/bin/awk -F: '/expire-after/{print $2}' /etc/security/audit_control

If the result is not "7d", this is a finding.

Implementation Procedure

Fix Text

Configure the macOS system to set audit retention to seven days with the following command:

/usr/bin/sed -i.bak 's/^expire-after.*/expire-after:7d/' /etc/security/audit_control; /usr/sbin/audit -s

STIG check 46 of 160 in the Apple macOS 15 (Sequoia) STIG checklist

← Previous · V-268465The macOS system must be configured to audit all failed write actions on the system.Next · V-268468 →The macOS system must configure audit capacity warning.