STIGUI
V-271816CAT II — Medium severitySV-271816r1092160_rule

OL 9 /etc/shadow- file must have mode 0000 or less permissive to prevent unauthorized access.

Rule version OL09-00-002554 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-21

Discussion

The "/etc/shadow-" file is a backup file of "/etc/shadow", and as such, contains the list of local system accounts and password hashes. Protection of this file is critical for system security.

Check

Verify that OL 9 configures the "/etc/shadow-" file to have a mode of "0000" with the following command:

$ stat -c "%a %n" /etc/shadow- 0 /etc/shadow-

If a value of "0" is not returned, this is a finding.

Fix

Change the mode of the file "/etc/shadow-" to "0000" by running the following command:

$ sudo chmod 0000 /etc/shadow-

Identifiers

Group ID
V-271816
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-271816r1092160_rule
Check ID
C-75866r1092158_chk
Fix ID
F-75773r1092159_fix