STIGUI
V-268565CAT II — Medium severitySV-268565r1268226_rule

The macOS system must enable Authenticated Root.

Rule version APPL-15-005070 · STIG v1 · 2026-09-01

Discussion

Authenticated Root must be enabled.

When Authenticated Root is enabled, the macOS is booted from a signed volume that is cryptographically protected to prevent tampering with the system volume.

NOTE: Authenticated Root is enabled by default on macOS systems.

WARNING: If more than one partition with macOS is detected, the csrutil command will hang awaiting input.

Check

Verify the macOS system is configured to enable authenticated root with the following command:

/usr/libexec/mdmclient QuerySecurityInfo | /usr/bin/grep -c "AuthenticatedRootVolumeEnabled = 1;"

If the result is not "1", this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the macOS system to enable authenticated root with the following command:

/usr/bin/csrutil authenticated-root enable

NOTE: To reenable "Authenticated Root", boot the affected system into "Recovery" mode, launch "Terminal" from the "Utilities" menu, and run the command.

Identifiers

Group ID
V-268565
Group title
SRG-OS-000080-GPOS-00048
Rule ID
SV-268565r1268226_rule
Check ID
C-72595r1034633_chk
Fix ID
F-72496r1034634_fix