Rule version TOSS-05-000184 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-20
Service configuration files enable or disable features of their respective services that if configured incorrectly can lead to insecure and vulnerable configurations; therefore, service configuration files should be owned by the correct group to prevent unauthorized changes.
Verify the group ownership of all cron configuration files using the following command:
$ stat -c "%G %n" /etc/cron*
root /etc/cron.d root /etc/cron.daily root /etc/cron.deny root /etc/cron.hourly root /etc/cron.monthly root /etc/crontab root /etc/cron.weekly
If any crontab is not group owned by root, this is a finding.
Configure any cron configuration not group-owned by root using the following command:
$ sudo chgrp root [cron config file]