The SSH PermitRootLogin option must be set correctly.

From Apple OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) Workstation STIG

Associated with: CCI-000770

SV-65739r1_rule The SSH PermitRootLogin option must be set correctly.

Vulnerability discussion

To assure individual accountability and prevent unauthorized access, organizational users shall be individually identified and authenticated. Users (and any processes acting on behalf of users) need to be uniquely identified and authenticated for all accesses other than those accesses explicitly identified and documented by the organization which outlines specific user actions that can be performed on the operating system without identification or authentication.Requiring individuals to be authenticated with an individual authenticator prior to using a group authenticator allows for traceability of actions, as well as, adding an additional level of protection of the actions that can be taken with group account knowledge.

Check content

To check if SSH has root logins enabled, run the following command: sudo grep ^PermitRootLogin /etc/sshd_config | awk '{ print $2 }' If there is no result, or the result is set to "yes", this is a finding.

Fix text

In order to make sure that PermitRootLogin is disabled by the sshd, run the following command: sudo sed -i.bak 's/.*PermitRootLogin.*/PermitRootLogin no/' /etc/sshd_config

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