STIGUI
V-257893CAT II — Medium severitySV-257893r1268251_rule

RHEL 9 /etc/gshadow file must have mode 0000 or less permissive to prevent unauthorized access.

Rule version RHEL-09-232065 · STIG v2 · 2026-09-17

Discussion

The "/etc/gshadow" file contains group password hashes. Protection of this file is critical for system security.

Check

Verify that the "/etc/gshadow" file has mode "0000" with the following command:

$ sudo stat -c "%a %n" /etc/gshadow

0 /etc/gshadow

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

Fix

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

$ sudo chmod 0000 /etc/gshadow

Identifiers

Group ID
V-257893
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-257893r1268251_rule
Check ID
C-61634r925664_chk
Fix ID
F-61558r925665_fix