STIGUI
V-277028CAT II — Medium severitySV-277028r1148536_rule

The macOS system must prevent Apple Watch from terminating a session lock.

Rule version APPL-26-000001 · STIG v1 · 2026-09-01

Discussion

Apple Watches are not an approved authenticator and their use must be disabled.

Disabling Apple Watches is a necessary step to ensuring that the information system retains a session lock until the user reestablishes access using an authorized identification and authentication procedures.

Note: Unlocking the system with an Apple Watch is not an approved authenticator for U.S. federal government usage as it has not been verified to meet the strength requirements outlined in NIST SP 800-63.

Check

Verify the macOS system is configured to prevent Apple Watch from terminating a session lock with the following command:

/usr/bin/osascript -l JavaScript << EOS $.NSUserDefaults.alloc.initWithSuiteName('com.apple.applicationaccess')\ .objectForKey('allowAutoUnlock').js EOS

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

Fix

Configure the macOS system to prevent Apple Watch from terminating a session lock by installing the "com.apple.applicationaccess" configuration profile.

Identifiers

Group ID
V-277028
Group title
SRG-OS-000028-GPOS-00009
Rule ID
SV-277028r1148536_rule
Check ID
C-81183r1148534_chk
Fix ID
F-81088r1148535_fix