STIGUI
V-271776CAT II — Medium severitySV-271776r1092040_rule

OL 9 SSH server configuration file must be group-owned by root.

Rule version OL09-00-002507 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-21

Discussion

Service configuration files enable or disable features of their respective services, which if configured incorrectly, can lead to insecure and vulnerable configurations. Therefore, service configuration files must be owned by the correct group to prevent unauthorized changes.

Check

Verify that OL 9 configures group ownership of the "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" file with the following command:

$ ls -al /etc/ssh/sshd_config rw-------. 1 root root 3669 Feb 22 11:34 /etc/ssh/sshd_config

If the "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" file does not have a group owner of "root", this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" file to be group-owned by root with the following command:

$ sudo chgrp root /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Identifiers

Group ID
V-271776
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-271776r1092040_rule
Check ID
C-75826r1092038_chk
Fix ID
F-75733r1092039_fix