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V-277161

CAT II (Medium)

The macOS system must configure system log files owned by root and group to wheel.

Rule ID

SV-277161r1148935_rule

STIG

Apple macOS 26 (Tahoe) Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V1R2

CCIs

CCI-001312 CCI-001314

Discussion

The system log files must be owned by root. System logs contain sensitive data about the system and users. Setting log files to be readable and writable only by system administrators mitigates the risk. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000205-GPOS-00083, SRG-OS-000206-GPOS-00084

Check Content

Verify the macOS system is configured with system log files owned by root and group to wheel with the following command:

/usr/bin/stat -f '%Su:%Sg:%N' $(/usr/bin/grep -v '^#' /etc/newsyslog.conf | /usr/bin/awk '{ print $1 }') 2> /dev/null | /usr/bin/awk '!/^root:wheel:/{print $1}' | /usr/bin/wc -l | /usr/bin/tr -d ' '

If the result is not "0", this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure the macOS system with system log files owned by root and group to wheel with the following command: 

/usr/sbin/chown root:wheel $(/usr/bin/stat -f '%Su:%Sg:%N' $(/usr/bin/grep -v '^#' /etc/newsyslog.conf | /usr/bin/awk '{ print $1 }') 2> /dev/null | /usr/bin/awk -F":" '!/^root:wheel:/{print $3}')