System start-up files must only execute programs owned by a privileged UID or an application.

System start-up files executing programs owned by other than root (or another privileged user) or an application indicates the system may have been compromised.

Determine the programs executed by system start-up files. Determine the ownership of the executed programs.

# cat /etc/rc* /etc/init.d/* | more

Check the ownership of every program executed by the system start-up files.

# ls -l <executed program>

If any executed program is not owned by root, sys, bin, or in rare cases, an application account, this is a finding.

Change the ownership of the file executed from system startup scripts to root, bin, or sys.

# chown root <executed file>