The SSH daemon must use privilege separation.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-22486	GEN005537	SV-35139r1_rule	ECLP-1	Medium

Description
SSH daemon privilege separation causes the SSH process to drop root privileges when not needed, which would decrease the impact of software vulnerabilities in the unprivileged section.

STIG	Date
HP-UX 11.23 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2015-06-12

Details

Check Text ( C-34999r1_chk )
Check the SSH daemon configuration. Note that keywords are case-insensitive and arguments (args) are case-sensitive. keyword=UsePrivilegeSeparation arg(s)=yes Default values include: "yes" Note: When the default "arg" value exactly matches the required "arg" value (see above), the entry is not required to exist (commented or uncommented) in the ssh (client) or sshd (server) configuration file. While not required, it is recommended that the configuration file(s) be populated with all keywords and assigned arg values as a means to explicitly document the ssh(d) binary's expected behavior. Examine the file. # cat /opt/ssh/etc/sshd_config \| tr '\011' ' ' \| tr -s ' ' \| sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//' \| grep -v '^#' \| grep -i "UsePrivilegeSeparation" If the return value is no, this is a finding.

Check Text ( C-34999r1_chk )

Check the SSH daemon configuration. Note that keywords are case-insensitive and arguments (args) are case-sensitive.

keyword=UsePrivilegeSeparation
arg(s)=yes

Default values include: "yes"

Note: When the default "arg" value exactly matches the required "arg" value (see above), the entry is not required to exist (commented or uncommented) in the ssh (client) or sshd (server) configuration file. While not required, it is recommended that the configuration file(s) be populated with all keywords and assigned arg values as a means to explicitly document the ssh(d) binary's expected behavior.

Examine the file.
# cat /opt/ssh/etc/sshd_config | tr '\011' ' ' | tr -s ' ' | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//' | grep -v '^#' | grep -i "UsePrivilegeSeparation"

If the return value is no, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-30291r1_fix)
Edit the SSH daemon configuration and add or edit the UsePrivilegeSeparation setting value to yes.