STIGUI
V-261266CAT I — High severitySV-261266r996292_rule

SLEM 5 must disable the x86 Ctrl-Alt-Delete key sequence.

Rule version SLEM-05-211025 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-20

Discussion

A locally logged-on user who presses Ctrl-Alt-Delete when at the console can reboot the system. If accidentally pressed, as could happen in the case of a mixed OS environment, this can create the risk of short-term loss of availability of systems due to unintentional reboot. In the graphical user interface environment, risk of unintentional reboot from the Ctrl-Alt-Delete sequence is reduced because the user will be prompted before any action is taken.

Check

Verify SLEM 5 is not configured to reboot the system when Ctrl-Alt-Delete is pressed with the following command:

     > systemctl status ctrl-alt-del.target
     ctrl-alt-del.target
          Loaded: masked (Reason: Unit ctrl-alt-del.target is masked.)
          Active: inactive (dead)

If ctrl-alt-del.target is not masked, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the system to disable the Ctrl-Alt-Delete sequence for the command line with the following commands:

     > sudo systemctl disable ctrl-alt-del.target
     > sudo systemctl mask ctrl-alt-del.target

Then, reload the daemon to take effect:

     > sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Identifiers

Group ID
V-261266
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-261266r996292_rule
Check ID
C-64995r996290_chk
Fix ID
F-64903r996291_fix