STIGUI
V-274870CAT II — Medium severitySV-274870r1261490_rule

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS must audit any script or executable called by cron as root or by any privileged user.

Rule version UBTU-24-200270 · STIG v1 · 2026-09-09

Discussion

Any script or executable called by cron as root or by any privileged user must be owned by that user, must have the permissions 755 or more restrictive, and should have no extended rights that allow any nonprivileged user to modify the script or executable.

Check

Verify Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is configured to audit the execution of any system call made by cron as root or as any privileged user.

$ sudo auditctl -l | grep /etc/cron.d -w /etc/cron.d -p wa -k cronjobs

$ sudo auditctl -l | grep /var/spool/cron -w /var/spool/cron -p wa -k cronjobs

If either of these commands does not return the expected output, or the lines are commented out, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS to audit the execution of any system call made by cron as root or as any privileged user.

Add or update the following file system rules to "/etc/audit/rules.d/stig.rules": -w /etc/cron.d/ -p wa -k cronjobs -w /var/spool/cron/ -p wa -k cronjobs

To load the rules to the kernel immediately, use the following command:

$ sudo augenrules --load

Identifiers

Group ID
V-274870
Group title
SRG-OS-000471-GPOS-00215
Rule ID
SV-274870r1261490_rule
Check ID
C-78971r1155225_chk
Fix ID
F-78876r1261489_fix