All setuid executables on the macOS system must be documented.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-214908	AOSX-13-001145	SV-214908r609363_rule		Medium

Description
Very few of the executables that come preinstalled on the macOS host have the "setuid" bit set, and administrators should never add the "setuid" bit to any executable that does not already have it set by the vendor. Executables with the "setuid" bit set allow anyone that executes them to be temporarily assigned the UID of the file owner. In practice, this almost always is the root account. While some vendors depend on this file attribute for proper operation, security problems can result if "setuid" is assigned to programs allowing reading and writing of files, or shell escapes, as this could lead to unprivileged users gaining privileged access to files and directories on the system.

Description

Very few of the executables that come preinstalled on the macOS host have the "setuid" bit set, and administrators should never add the "setuid" bit to any executable that does not already have it set by the vendor. Executables with the "setuid" bit set allow anyone that executes them to be temporarily assigned the UID of the file owner. In practice, this almost always is the root account. While some vendors depend on this file attribute for proper operation, security problems can result if "setuid" is assigned to programs allowing reading and writing of files, or shell escapes, as this could lead to unprivileged users gaining privileged access to files and directories on the system.

STIG	Date
Apple OS X 10.13 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2021-11-19

Details

Check Text ( C-16108r397296_chk )
If available, provide a list of "setuids" provided by a vendor. To list all of the files with the "setuid" bit set, run the following command to send all results to a file named "suidfilelist": /usr/bin/sudo find / -perm -4000 -exec /bin/ls -ldb {} \; > suidfilelist If any of the files listed are not documented as needing to have the "setuid" bit set by the vendor, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-16106r397297_fix)
Document all of the files with the "setuid" bit set. Remove any undocumented files.