STIGUI
V-248584CAT II — Medium severitySV-248584r991589_rule

OL 8 must use the invoking user's password for privilege escalation when using "sudo".

Rule version OL08-00-010383 · STIG v2 · 2026-08-24

Discussion

The sudoers security policy requires that users authenticate themselves before they can use sudo. When sudoers requires authentication, it validates the invoking user's credentials. If the rootpw, targetpw, or runaspw flags are defined and not disabled, by default the operating system will prompt the invoking user for the "root" user password. For more information on each of the listed configurations, reference the sudoers(5) manual page.

Check

Verify that the sudoers security policy is configured to use the invoking user's password for privilege escalation.

     $ sudo grep -Eir '(rootpw|targetpw|runaspw)' /etc/sudoers /etc/sudoers.d* | grep -v '#'
     /etc/sudoers:Defaults !targetpw
     /etc/sudoers:Defaults !rootpw
     /etc/sudoers:Defaults !runaspw

If conflicting results are returned, this is a finding. If "Defaults !targetpw" is not defined, this is a finding. If "Defaults !rootpw" is not defined, this is a finding. If "Defaults !runaspw" is not defined, this is a finding.

Fix

Define the following in the Defaults section of the /etc/sudoers file or a configuration file in the /etc/sudoers.d/ directory: Defaults !targetpw Defaults !rootpw Defaults !runaspw

Remove any configurations that conflict with the above from the following locations: /etc/sudoers /etc/sudoers.d/

Identifiers

Group ID
V-248584
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-248584r991589_rule
Check ID
C-52018r880552_chk
Fix ID
F-51972r880553_fix