UCF STIG Viewer Logo

The macOS system must be configured with audit log files owned by root.


Overview

Finding ID Version Rule ID IA Controls Severity
V-252466 APPL-12-001012 SV-252466r816212_rule Medium
Description
The audit service must be configured to create log files with the correct ownership to prevent normal users from reading audit logs. Audit logs contain sensitive data about the system and users. If log files are set to only be readable and writable by root or administrative users with sudo, the risk is mitigated.
STIG Date
Apple macOS 12 (Monterey) Security Technical Implementation Guide 2022-09-07

Details

Check Text ( C-55922r816210_chk )
To check the ownership of the audit log files, run the following command:

/usr/bin/sudo ls -le $(/usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/grep '^dir' /etc/security/audit_control | awk -F: '{print $2}') | grep -v current

The results should show the owner (third column) to be "root".

If they do not, this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-55872r816211_fix)
For any log file that returns an incorrect owner, run the following command:

/usr/bin/sudo chown root [audit log file]

[audit log file] is the full path to the log file in question.