STIGUI
V-252967CAT II — Medium severitySV-252967r991589_rule

TOSS must not have unnecessary accounts.

Rule version TOSS-04-020280 · STIG v2 · 2026-08-20

Discussion

Accounts providing no operational purpose provide additional opportunities for system compromise. Unnecessary accounts include user accounts for individuals not requiring access to the system and application accounts for applications not installed on the system.

Check

Verify all accounts on the system are assigned to an active system, application, or user account.

Obtain the list of authorized system accounts from the Information System Security Officer (ISSO).

Check the system accounts on the system with the following command:

$ sudo more /etc/passwd

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/sbin/nologin daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/sbin:/sbin/nologin sync:x:5:0:sync:/sbin:/bin/sync shutdown:x:6:0:shutdown:/sbin:/sbin/shutdown halt:x:7:0:halt:/sbin:/sbin/halt games:x:12:100:games:/usr/games:/sbin/nologin gopher:x:13:30:gopher:/var/gopher:/sbin/nologin

Accounts such as "games" and "gopher" are not authorized accounts as they do not support authorized system functions.

If the accounts on the system do not match the provided documentation, or accounts that do not support an authorized system function are present, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the system so all accounts on the system are assigned to an active system, application, or user account.

Remove accounts that do not support approved system activities or that allow for a normal user to perform administrative-level actions.

Document all authorized accounts on the system.

Identifiers

Group ID
V-252967
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-252967r991589_rule
Check ID
C-56420r824223_chk
Fix ID
F-56370r824224_fix