STIGUI
V-271777CAT II — Medium severitySV-271777r1092043_rule

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

Rule version OL09-00-002508 · 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 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 an owner of "root", this is a finding.

Fix

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

$ sudo chown root /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Identifiers

Group ID
V-271777
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-271777r1092043_rule
Check ID
C-75827r1092041_chk
Fix ID
F-75734r1092042_fix