STIGUI
V-215184CAT II — Medium severitySV-215184r991560_rule

AIX device files and directories must only be writable by users with a system account or as configured by the vendor.

Rule version AIX7-00-001019 · STIG v3 · 2026-08-31

Discussion

System device files in writable directories could be modified, removed, or used by an unprivileged user to control system hardware.

Check

Find all device files existing anywhere on the system using commands: # find / -type b -print | xargs ls -l > devicelistB # find / -type c -print | xargs ls -l > devicelistC

Look at devicelistB and devicelistC files to check the permissions on the device files and directories above the subdirectories containing device files.

If any of the device files or their parent directories are world-writable, excepting device files specifically intended to be world-writable, such as "/dev/null", this is a finding.

Fix

Remove the world-writable permission from the device file(s) using command: # chmod o-w <device file>

Identifiers

Group ID
V-215184
Group title
SRG-OS-000259-GPOS-00100
Rule ID
SV-215184r991560_rule
Check ID
C-16382r294003_chk
Fix ID
F-16380r294004_fix