The x86 CTRL-ALT-DELETE key sequence must be disabled.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
RHEL-06-000286	RHEL-06-000286	RHEL-06-000286_rule		High

Description
A locally logged-in user who presses Ctrl-Alt-Del, when at the console, can reboot the system. If accidentally pressed, as could happen in the case of mixed OS environment, this can create the risk of short-term loss of availability of systems due to unintentional reboot. In the GNOME graphical environment, risk of unintentional reboot from the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence is reduced because the user will be prompted before any action is taken.

Description

A locally logged-in user who presses Ctrl-Alt-Del, when at the console, can reboot the system. If accidentally pressed, as could happen in the case of mixed OS environment, this can create the risk of short-term loss of availability of systems due to unintentional reboot. In the GNOME graphical environment, risk of unintentional reboot from the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence is reduced because the user will be prompted before any action is taken.

STIG	Date
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2013-02-05

Details

Check Text ( C-RHEL-06-000286_chk )
To check how the system is configured to behave when Ctrl-Alt-Del is pressed, inspect the file "/etc/init/control-alt-delete". The commands following the line below will be executed when the key sequence is pressed: start on control-alt-delete If the system is configured to run the shutdown command, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-RHEL-06-000286_fix)
By default, the system includes the following line in "/etc/init/control-alt-delete" to reboot the system when the Ctrl-Alt-Del key sequence is pressed: exec /sbin/shutdown -r now "Control-Alt-Delete pressed" To configure the system to log a message instead of rebooting the system, alter that line to read as follows: exec /usr/bin/logger -p security.info "Control-Alt-Delete pressed"