STIGUI
V-215300CAT II — Medium severitySV-215300r1268251_rule

AIX must turn off X11 forwarding for the SSH daemon.

Rule version AIX7-00-002117 · STIG v3 · 2026-08-31

Discussion

X11 forwarding over SSH allows for the secure remote execution of X11-based applications. This feature can increase the attack surface of an SSH connection and should not be enabled unless needed.

Check

If X11 forwarding has been authorized for use, this is Not Applicable.

Check the SSH daemon configuration for the "X11Forwarding" directive using command:

# grep -i X11Forwarding /etc/ssh/sshd_config | grep -v '^#' X11Forwarding no

If the setting is not present or the setting is "yes", this is a finding.

Fix

Edit the "/etc/sshd/sshd_config" file to add the following line and save the change: X11Forwarding no

Restart the SSH daemon: # stopsrc -s sshd # startsrc -s sshd

Identifiers

Group ID
V-215300
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-215300r1268251_rule
Check ID
C-16498r294351_chk
Fix ID
F-16496r294352_fix