STIGUI
V-281026CAT II — Medium severitySV-281026r1268226_rule

RHEL 10 must be configured so that the "/etc/passwd" file is group-owned by "root".

Rule version RHEL-10-400045 · STIG v1 · 2026-09-17

Discussion

The "/etc/passwd" file contains information about the users that are configured on the system. Protection of this file is critical for system security.

Check

Verify RHEL 10 is configured so that the "/etc/passwd" file is group-owned by "root" with the following command:

$ sudo stat -c "%G %n" /etc/passwd root /etc/passwd

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

Fix

Configure RHEL 10 so that the group of the "/etc/passwd" file is set to "root" by running the following command:

$ sudo chgrp root /etc/passwd

Identifiers

Group ID
V-281026
Group title
SRG-OS-000080-GPOS-00048
Rule ID
SV-281026r1268226_rule
Check ID
C-85587r1165431_chk
Fix ID
F-85492r1165432_fix