The ESXi host Secure Shell (SSH) daemon must ignore ".rhosts" files.
Severity | Group ID | Group Title | Version | Rule ID | Date | STIG Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| medium | V-256385 | SRG-OS-000107-VMM-000530 | ESXI-70-000012 | SV-256385r984206_rule | 2025-02-11 | 1 |
Description
SSH trust relationships mean a compromise on one host can allow an attacker to move trivially to other hosts. SSH can emulate the behavior of the obsolete "rsh" command in allowing users to enable insecure access to their accounts via ".rhosts" files.
ℹ️ Check
From an ESXi shell, run the following command:
# /usr/lib/vmware/openssh/bin/sshd -T|grep ignorerhosts
Expected result:
ignorerhosts yes
If the output does not match the expected result, this is a finding.
✔️ Fix
From an ESXi shell, add or correct the following line in "/etc/ssh/sshd_config":
IgnoreRhosts yes