AZLX-23-001230 - Amazon Linux 2023 SSHD must accept public key authentication.

Information

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:
1. Something a user knows (e.g., password/PIN);
2. Something a user has (e.g., cryptographic identification device, token); and
3. 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

Item Details

Audit Name: DISA Amazon Linux 2023 STIG v1r2

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 78d7e18c94777e84cde297a26e1a5433d1d8367ce474b122d82e6373c377dc29

Detections

Analytics

AZLX-23-001230 - Amazon Linux 2023 SSHD must accept public key authentication.

Information

Solution

See Also

Item Details