STIGUI
V-281030CAT II — Medium severitySV-281030r1268226_rule

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

Rule version RHEL-10-400065 · STIG v1 · 2026-09-17

Discussion

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

Check

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

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

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

Fix

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

$ sudo chgrp root /etc/shadow

Identifiers

Group ID
V-281030
Group title
SRG-OS-000080-GPOS-00048
Rule ID
SV-281030r1268226_rule
Check ID
C-85591r1165443_chk
Fix ID
F-85496r1165444_fix