STIGUI
V-271532CAT II — Medium severitySV-271532r1092484_rule

OL 9 must generate audit records for all account creations, modifications, disabling, and termination events that affect /etc/passwd.

Rule version OL09-00-000525 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-21

Discussion

In addition to auditing new user and group accounts, these watches will alert the system administrator(s) to any modifications. Any unexpected users, groups, or modifications should be investigated for legitimacy.

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000004-GPOS-00004, SRG-OS-000037-GPOS-00015, SRG-OS-000042-GPOS-00020, SRG-OS-000062-GPOS-00031, SRG-OS-000304-GPOS-00121, SRG-OS-000392-GPOS-00172, SRG-OS-000462-GPOS-00206, SRG-OS-000470-GPOS-00214, SRG-OS-000471-GPOS-00215, SRG-OS-000239-GPOS-00089, SRG-OS-000240-GPOS-00090, SRG-OS-000241-GPOS-00091, SRG-OS-000303-GPOS-00120, SRG-OS-000466-GPOS-00210, SRG-OS-000476-GPOS-00221, SRG-OS-000274-GPOS-00104, SRG-OS-000275-GPOS-00105, SRG-OS-000276-GPOS-00106, SRG-OS-000277-GPOS-00107

Check

Verify that OL 9 generates audit records for all account creations, modifications, disabling, and termination events that affect "/etc/passwd" with the following command:

$ sudo auditctl -l | egrep '(/etc/passwd)' -w /etc/passwd -p wa -k identity

If the command does not return a line or the line is commented out, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure OL 9 to generate audit records for all account creations, modifications, disabling, and termination events that affect "/etc/passwd".

Add or update the following file system rule to "/etc/audit/rules.d/audit.rules":

-w /etc/passwd -p wa -k identity

The audit daemon must be restarted for the changes to take effect.

Restart auditd: $ sudo service auditd restart

Identifiers

Group ID
V-271532
Group title
SRG-OS-000004-GPOS-00004
Rule ID
SV-271532r1092484_rule
Check ID
C-75582r1091306_chk
Fix ID
F-75489r1092483_fix