AIX cron and crontab directories must be owned by root or bin.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-215270	SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227	AIX7-00-002078	SV-215270r991589_rule	2024-08-16	3

Description
Incorrect ownership of the cron or crontab directories could permit unauthorized users the ability to alter cron jobs and run automated jobs as privileged users. Failure to give ownership of cron or crontab directories to root or to bin provides the designated owner and unauthorized users with the potential to access sensitive information or change the system configuration which could weaken the system's security posture.

Description

Incorrect ownership of the cron or crontab directories could permit unauthorized users the ability to alter cron jobs and run automated jobs as privileged users. Failure to give ownership of cron or crontab directories to root or to bin provides the designated owner and unauthorized users with the potential to access sensitive information or change the system configuration which could weaken the system's security posture.

ℹ️ Check
Check the owner of the "crontab" directory using command: # ls -ld /var/spool/cron/crontabs drwxrwx--- 2 bin cron 256 Jan 25 12:33 /var/spool/cron/crontabs If the owner of the "crontab" directory is not "root" or "bin", this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Change the owner of the "crontab" directory: # chown root /var/spool/cron/crontabs