BIND 9.x Security Technical Implementation Guide

The BIND 9.x Security Technical Implementation Guide (V3 R4) has 73 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

V3 · R4

CurrentPublished Wed Sep 30 2026

The read and write access to a TSIG key file used by a BIND 9.x server must be restricted to only the account that runs the name server software.

BIND 9.x Security Technical Implementation Guide

Assessment Title

Rule Text

The read and write access to a TSIG key file used by a BIND 9.x server must be restricted to only the account that runs the name server software.

Description

Discussion Text

Weak permissions of a TSIG key file could allow an adversary to modify the file, thus defeating the security objective.

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

Objective

V-272375

Rule

SV-272375r1123858_rule

Severity

medium

Rule Version

BIND-9X-001180

Documentable

false

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Rev 5

Assessment Procedure

Check Text

Verify permissions assigned to the TSIG keys enforce read-write access to the key owner and deny access to group or system users.

With the assistance of the DNS administrator, determine the location of the TSIG keys used by the BIND 9.x implementation:

# ls -al <TSIG_Key_Location>
-rw-r-----. 1 root named 76 May 10 20:35 tsig-example.key

If the key files are more permissive than 640, this is a finding.

Implementation Procedure

Fix Text

Change the permissions of the TSIG key files:

# chmod 640 <TSIG_key_file>

STIG check 11 of 73 in the BIND 9.x STIG checklist

← Previous · V-272373The BIND 9.x server signature generation using the key signing key (KSK) must be done offline, using the KSK-private key stored offline.Next · V-272376 →A unique TSIG key used by a BIND 9.x server must be generated for each pair of communicating hosts.