STIGUI
V-257874CAT II — Medium severitySV-257874r958804_rule

RHEL 9 must mount /var/log/audit with the noexec option.

Rule version RHEL-09-231165 · STIG v2 · 2026-09-17

Discussion

The "noexec" mount option causes the system to not execute binary files. This option must be used for mounting any file system not containing approved binary files, as they may be incompatible. Executing files from untrusted file systems increases the opportunity for nonprivileged users to attain unauthorized administrative access.

Check

Verify "/var/log/audit" is mounted with the "noexec" option:

$ mount | grep /var/log/audit

/dev/mapper/rhel-var-log-audit on /var/log/audit type xfs (rw,nodev,nosuid,noexec,seclabel)

If the "/var/log/audit" file system is mounted without the "noexec" option, this is a finding.

Fix

Modify "/etc/fstab" to use the "noexec" option on the "/var/log/audit" directory.

Identifiers

Group ID
V-257874
Group title
SRG-OS-000368-GPOS-00154
Rule ID
SV-257874r958804_rule
Check ID
C-61615r925607_chk
Fix ID
F-61539r925608_fix