Detections
Analytics

1.54 AZLX-23-001230

Information

Amazon Linux 2023 SSHD must accept public key authentication.

GROUP ID: V-274047RULE ID: SV-274047r1120129

Without the use of multifactor authentication, the ease of access to privileged functions is greatly increased.

Multifactor authentication requires using two or more factors to achieve authentication.

Factors include:

 - Something a user knows (e.g., password/PIN);
 - Something a user has (e.g., cryptographic identification device, token); and
 - Something a user is (e.g., biometric).

A privileged account is defined as an information system account with authorizations of a privileged user.

Network access is defined as access to an information system by a user (or a process acting on behalf of a user) communicating through a network (e.g., local area network, wide area network, or the internet).

The DOD Common Access Card (CAC) with DOD-approved PKI is an example of multifactor authentication.

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000105-GPOS-00052, SRG-OS-000106-GPOS-00053, SRG-OS-000107-GPOS-00054, SRG-OS-000108-GPOS-00055

Solution

Configure Amazon Linux 2023 to use public key authentication for SSHD by adding or modifying the following line in "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" or in a file in "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d".

PubkeyAuthentication yes

Restart the SSH daemon for the settings to take effect:

$ sudo systemctl restart sshd.service

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/26107

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-2(1), 800-53|IA-2(2), CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000765, CCI|CCI-000766, Rule-ID|SV-274047r1120129_rule, STIG-ID|AZLX-23-001230, Vuln-ID|V-274047

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 775798a0a6daaca1961ef0b346ae287fe1c77d735f2952f650e15d1d54a0bfc7