The root account must be the only account having unrestricted access to an AlmaLinux OS 9 system.

STIG ID: ALMA-09-023890  |  SRG: SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227 |  Severity: medium |  CCI: CCI-000366 |  Vulnerability Id: V-269291

Vulnerability Discussion

An account has root authority if it has a user identifier (UID) of "0". Multiple accounts with a UID of "0" afford more opportunity for potential intruders to guess a password for a privileged account.

Proper configuration of sudo is recommended to afford multiple system administrators access to root privileges in an accountable manner.

Check

Verify that only the "root" account has a UID "0" assignment with the following command:

$ awk -F: '$3 == 0 {print $1}' /etc/passwd

root

If any accounts other than "root" have a UID of "0", this is a finding.

Fix

Change the UID of any account on the system, other than root which has a UID of "0".

If the account is associated with system commands or applications, the UID should be changed to one greater than "0" but less than "1000". Otherwise, assign a UID of greater than "1000" that has not already been assigned.
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