Vulnerability Discussion

Excessive permissions on local interactive user home directories may allow unauthorized access to user files by other users.

Check

Verify all files and directories contained in a local interactive user home directory, excluding local initialization files, have a mode of "0750".

Files that begin with a "." are excluded from this requirement.

Note: The example will be for the user "smithj", who has a home directory of "/home/smithj".

$ sudo ls -lLR /home/smithj
-rwxr-x--- 1 smithj smithj 18 Mar 5 17:06 file1
-rwxr----- 1 smithj smithj 193 Mar 5 17:06 file2
-rw-r-x--- 1 smithj smithj 231 Mar 5 17:06 file3

If any files or directories are found with a mode more permissive than "0750", this is a finding.

Fix

Set the mode on files and directories in the local interactive user home directory with the following command:

Note: The example will be for the user smithj, who has a home directory of "/home/smithj" and is a member of the users group.

$ sudo chmod 0750 /home/smithj/