Rule version RHEL-10-400190 · STIG v1 · 2026-09-17
If users can write to audit logs, audit trails can be modified or destroyed.
Satisfies: SRG-OS-000057-GPOS-00027, SRG-OS-000058-GPOS-00028, SRG-OS-000059-GPOS-00029
Verify RHEL 10 enforces the audit log directory to have a mode of "0750" or less permissive to prevent unauthorized read access.
Determine where the audit logs are stored with the following command:
$ sudo grep "^log_file" /etc/audit/auditd.conf log_file = /var/log/audit/audit.log
Find the group that owns audit logs:
$ sudo grep "^log_group" /etc/audit/auditd.conf log_group = root
Run the following command to check the mode of the system audit logs:
$ sudo stat -c "%a %n" [audit_log_directory]
Replace "[audit_log_directory]" to the correct audit log directory path; by default this location is "/var/log/audit".
If the log_group is "root" or is not set, the correct permissions are "0700".
If the log_group is owned by anyone other than "root", the correct permissions are "0750".
If audit logs have a more permissive mode than is required, this is a finding.
Configure RHEL 10 so that the audit log directories have a mode of "0750" or less permissive to prevent unauthorized read access with the following command:
$ sudo chmod 0700 /var/log/audit
Note: The correct permissions are "0700" if the directory is owned by "root"; otherwise, the correct permissions are "0750".
Restart the audit daemon with the following command for the changes to take effect:
$ sudo service auditd restart