STIGUI
V-269228CAT II — Medium severitySV-269228r1050110_rule

AlmaLinux OS 9 /etc/shadow- file must have mode 0000 or less permissive to prevent unauthorized access.

Rule version ALMA-09-016850 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-25

Discussion

The "/etc/shadow-" file is a backup file of "/etc/shadow", and as such, contains the list of local system accounts and password hashes. Protection of this file is critical for system security.

Check

Verify that the "/etc/shadow-" file has mode "0000" with the following command:

$ stat -c "%a %n" /etc/shadow-

0 /etc/shadow-

If a value of "0" is not returned, this is a finding.

Fix

Change the mode of the file "/etc/shadow-" to "0000" by running the following command:

$ chmod 0000 /etc/shadow-

Identifiers

Group ID
V-269228
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-269228r1050110_rule
Check ID
C-73259r1048060_chk
Fix ID
F-73160r1048061_fix