RHEL 9 cron configuration files directory must be owned by root.

STIG ID: RHEL-09-232230  |  SRG: SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227 | Severity: medium |  CCI: CCI-000366

Vulnerability Discussion

Service configuration files enable or disable features of their respective services that if configured incorrectly can lead to insecure and vulnerable configurations; therefore, service configuration files must be owned by the correct group to prevent unauthorized changes.

Check

Verify the ownership of all cron configuration files with the command:

$ stat -c "%U %n" /etc/cron*

root /etc/cron.d
root /etc/cron.daily
root /etc/cron.deny
root /etc/cron.hourly
root /etc/cron.monthly
root /etc/crontab
root /etc/cron.weekly

If any crontab is not owned by root, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure any cron configuration not owned by root with the following command:

$ sudo chown root [cron config file]