V-204474

Discussion

Local initialization files are used to configure the user's shell environment upon logon. Malicious modification of these files could compromise accounts upon logon.

Check Content

Verify the local initialization files of all local interactive users are owned by that user.

Check the home directory assignment for all nonprivileged users on the system with the following command:

Note: The example will be for the smithj user, who has a home directory of "/home/smithj".

     # awk -F: '($3>=1000)&&($7 !~ /nologin/){print $1, $3, $6}' /etc/passwd
     
     smithj 1000 /home/smithj

Note: This may miss interactive users that have been assigned a privileged User Identifier (UID). Evidence of interactive use may be obtained from a number of log files containing system logon information.

Check the owner of all local interactive users' initialization files with the following command:

     # ls -al /home/smithj/.[^.]* | more

     -rw-------. 1 smithj users 2984 Apr 27 19:02 .bash_history
     -rw-r--r--. 1 smithj users   18 Aug 21  2019 .bash_logout
     -rw-r--r--. 1 smithj users  193 Aug 21  2019 .bash_profile

If all local interactive users' initialization files are not owned by that user or root, this is a finding.