STIGUI
V-288815CAT II — Medium severitySV-288815r1261433_rule

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS must generate audit records for successful/unsuccessful uses of the useradd command.

Rule version UBTU-22-654126 · STIG v2 · 2026-09-09

Discussion

Without generating audit records that are specific to the security and mission needs of the organization, it would be difficult to establish, correlate, and investigate the events relating to an incident or identify those responsible for one.

Audit records can be generated from various components within the information system (e.g., module or policy filter).

Check

Verify that an audit event is generated for any successful/unsuccessful use of the "useradd" command by using the following command:

$ sudo auditctl -l | grep -w useradd -a always,exit -S all -F path=/usr/sbin/useradd -F perm=x -F auid>=1000 -F auid!=-1 -F key=privileged-useradd

If the command does not return a line that matches the example or the line is commented out, this is a finding.

Note: The "key=" value is arbitrary and can be different from the example output above.

Fix

Configure the audit system to generate an audit event for any successful/unsuccessful uses of the "useradd" command.

Add or modify the following line in the "/etc/audit/rules.d/stig.rules" file:

-a always,exit -F path=/usr/sbin/useradd -F perm=x -F auid>=1000 -F auid!=unset -k privileged-useradd

To reload the rules file, issue the following command:

$ sudo augenrules --load 

Note: The "-k <keyname>" at the end of the line gives the rule a unique meaning to help during an audit investigation. The <keyname> does not need to match the example above.

Identifiers

Group ID
V-288815
Group title
SRG-OS-000064-GPOS-00033
Rule ID
SV-288815r1261433_rule
Check ID
C-93504r1261431_chk
Fix ID
F-93409r1261432_fix