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6.1.4 Ensure permissions on /etc/shells are configured

Information

/etc/shells is a text file that contains the full pathnames of valid login shells. This file is consulted by chsh and is available to be queried by other programs.

It is critical to protect the /etc/shells file from unauthorized access. Although it is protected by default, the file permissions could be changed inadvertently or through malicious actions.

Solution

Run the following commands to remove excess permissions, set owner, and set group on /etc/shells :

# chmod u-x,go-wx /etc/shells
# chown root:wheel /etc/shells

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/19044

Item Details

Category: ACCESS CONTROL, MEDIA PROTECTION

References: 800-53|AC-3, 800-53|AC-5, 800-53|AC-6, 800-53|MP-2, CSCv7|14.6

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 34fd2f85c4059de4364f36ced7420ee93142a1dd560f7ad487519be731cde441