Vulnerability Discussion

Local initialization files are used to configure the user's shell environment upon logon. Malicious modification of these files could compromise accounts upon logon.

Check

Verify that all local initialization files have a mode of "0740" or less permissive with the following command:

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

$ sudo ls -al /home/smithj/.[^.]* | more

-rwxr-xr-x 1 smithj users 896 Mar 10 2011 .profile
-rwxr-xr-x 1 smithj users 497 Jan 6 2007 .login
-rwxr-xr-x 1 smithj users 886 Jan 6 2007 .something

If any local initialization files have a mode more permissive than "0740", this is a finding.

Fix

Set the mode of the local initialization files to "0740" with the following command:

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

$ sudo chmod 0740 /home/smithj/.