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RHEL 9 SSH daemon must be configured to use privilege separation.


Overview

Finding ID Version Rule ID IA Controls Severity
V-258010 RHEL-09-255170 SV-258010r991589_rule 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 nonprivileged section.
STIG Date
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Security Technical Implementation Guide 2024-06-04

Details

Check Text ( C-61751r952215_chk )
Verify the SSH daemon performs privilege separation with the following command:

$ sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -dd 2>&1 | awk '/filename/ {print $4}' | tr -d '\r' | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs sudo grep -iH '^\s*useprivilegeseparation'

UsePrivilegeSeparation sandbox

If the "UsePrivilegeSeparation" keyword is set to "no", the returned line is commented out, or no output is returned, this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-61675r926016_fix)
Configure the SSH daemon to perform privilege separation.

Add the following line in "/etc/ssh/sshd_config", or uncomment the line and set the value to "yes" or "sandbox":

UsePrivilegeSeparation sandbox

The SSH service must be restarted for changes to take effect:

$ sudo systemctl restart sshd.service