Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 • Release: 7 Benchmark Date: 05 Jan 2026

CAT II V-257926 RHEL-09-232230

RHEL 9 cron configuration files directory must be owned by root.

Documentable No
Rule ID SV-257926r991589_rule
CCI References
CCI-000366

Service configuration files enable or disable features of their respective services that if configured incorrectly can lead to insecure and vulnerable configurations; therefore, service configuration files must be owned by the correct group to prevent unauthorized changes.

Check Procedure

Verify the ownership of all cron configuration files with the command:

$ stat -c "%U %n" /etc/cron*

root /etc/cron.d
root /etc/cron.daily
root /etc/cron.deny
root /etc/cron.hourly
root /etc/cron.monthly
root /etc/crontab
root /etc/cron.weekly

If any crontab is not owned by root, this is a finding.

Fix Action

Configure any cron configuration not owned by root with the following command:

$ sudo chown root [cron config file]