STIGUI
V-260526CAT I — High severitySV-260526r1208678_rule

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS must not allow unattended or automatic login via SSH.

Rule version UBTU-22-255025 · STIG v2 · 2026-09-09

Discussion

Failure to restrict system access to authenticated users negatively impacts Ubuntu 22.04 LTS security.

Check

Verify that unattended or automatic login via SSH is disabled by using the following command:

     $ sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -dd 2>&1 | awk '/filename/ {print $4}' | tr -d '\r' | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs sudo grep -iEH '(permit(.*?)(passwords|environment))' 
     /etc/ssh/sshd_config:PermitEmptyPasswords no 
     /etc/ssh/sshd_config:PermitUserEnvironment no 

If "PermitEmptyPasswords" and "PermitUserEnvironment" are not set to "no", are commented out, are missing, or conflicting results are returned, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the SSH server to not allow unattended or automatic login to the system.

Add or modify the following lines in the "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" file:

PermitEmptyPasswords no PermitUserEnvironment no

Restart SSH for the changes to take effect:

$ sudo systemctl restart ssh

Identifiers

Group ID
V-260526
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00229
Rule ID
SV-260526r1208678_rule
Check ID
C-64255r953389_chk
Fix ID
F-64163r1208677_fix