STIGUI
V-215341CAT II — Medium severitySV-215341r1268251_rule

The sticky bit must be set on all public directories on AIX systems.

Rule version AIX7-00-003035 · STIG v3 · 2026-08-31

Discussion

Failing to set the sticky bit on public directories allows unauthorized users to delete files in the directory structure. The only authorized public directories are those temporary directories supplied with the system, or those designed to be temporary file repositories. The setting is normally reserved for directories used by the system, and by users for temporary file storage - such as /tmp - and for directories requiring global read/write access.

Check

Verify all world-writable directories have the sticky bit set by running the command:

# find / -type d -perm -002 ! -perm -1000 > wwlist 
# cat wwlist

If any directories are listed in the "wwlist" file, this is a finding.

Fix

Set the sticky bit on all public directories, such as: # chmod 1777 /tmp

(Replace /tmp with the public directory missing the sticky bit, if necessary.)

Identifiers

Group ID
V-215341
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-215341r1268251_rule
Check ID
C-16539r294474_chk
Fix ID
F-16537r294475_fix