STIGUI
V-271812CAT II — Medium severitySV-271812r1092148_rule

OL 9 /etc/shadow file must be group-owned by root.

Rule version OL09-00-002550 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-21

Discussion

The "/etc/shadow" file stores password hashes. Protection of this file is critical for system security.

Check

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

$ stat -c "%G %n" /etc/shadow root /etc/shadow

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

Fix

Change the group of the file /etc/shadow to root by running the following command:

$ sudo chgrp root /etc/shadow

Identifiers

Group ID
V-271812
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-271812r1092148_rule
Check ID
C-75862r1092146_chk
Fix ID
F-75769r1092147_fix