STIGUI
V-256578CAT II — Medium severitySV-256578r1268251_rule

The Photon operating system must be configured to protect the Secure Shell ( SSH) private host key from unauthorized access.

Rule version PHTN-30-000109 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-31

Discussion

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

Check

At the command line, run the following command:

# stat -c "%n permissions are %a and owned by %U:%G" /etc/ssh/*key

Expected result:

/etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key permissions are 600 and owned by root:root /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key permissions are 600 and owned by root:root /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key permissions are 600 and owned by root:root /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key permissions are 600 and owned by root:root

If any key file listed is not owned by root or not group owned by root or does not have permissions of "0600", this is a finding.

Fix

At the command line, run the following commands for each returned file:

# chmod 600 <file>
# chown root:root <file>

Identifiers

Group ID
V-256578
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-256578r1268251_rule
Check ID
C-60253r942496_chk
Fix ID
F-60196r887407_fix