STIGUI
V-217276CAT II — Medium severitySV-217276r991589_rule

The SUSE operating system SSH daemon private host key files must have mode 0640 or less permissive.

Rule version SLES-12-030220 · STIG v3 · 2025-11-24

Discussion

If an unauthorized user obtains the private SSH host key file, the host could be impersonated.

Check

Verify the SUSE operating system SSH daemon private host key files have mode "0640" or less permissive.

The following command will find all SSH private key files on the system:

     > sudo find / -name '*ssh_host*key' -exec ls -lL {} \;

Check the mode of the private host key files under "/etc/ssh" file with the following command:

     > find /etc/ssh -name 'ssh_host*key' -exec stat -c "%a %n" {} \;
     640 /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
     640 /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
     640 /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
     640 /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key

If any file has a mode more permissive than "0640", this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the mode of the SUSE operating system SSH daemon private host key files under "/etc/ssh" to "0640" with the following command:

     > sudo chmod 0640 /etc/ssh/ssh_host*key

Identifiers

Group ID
V-217276
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-217276r991589_rule
Check ID
C-18504r880917_chk
Fix ID
F-18502r880918_fix