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V-258000

CAT II (Medium)

RHEL 9 SSH private host key files must have mode 0600 or less permissive.

Rule ID

SV-258000r1208772_rule

STIG

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V2R9

CCIs

CCI-000366

Discussion

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

Check Content

Verify the SSH private host key files have a mode of "0600" or less permissive with the following command:

$ stat -c "%a %n" /etc/ssh/*_key

600 /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
600 /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
600 /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key
600 /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key

If any private host key file has a mode more permissive than "0600", this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure the mode of SSH private host key files under "/etc/ssh" to "0600" with the following command:

$ sudo chmod 0600 /etc/ssh/ssh_host*key

Restart the SSH daemon for the changes to take effect:

$ sudo systemctl restart sshd.service