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

Documentable No

Rule ID SV-257927r991589_rule

CCI References

CCI-000366

Discussion

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 should be owned by the correct group to prevent unauthorized changes.

Check Procedure

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

$ stat -c "%G %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 group owned by root, this is a finding.

Fix Action

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

$ sudo chgrp root [cron config file]