Ensure users' dot files are not group or world writable

How it is checked

Audit method: Manual review

This recommendation cannot be checked automatically. A scan lists it with these instructions when you pass --include-manual.

Run the following script and verify no results are returned: #!/bin/bash grep -E -v '^(system-halt|sync|system-shutdown)' /etc/passwd | awk -F: '($7 != "'"$(which nologin)"'" && $7 != "/bin/false") { print $1 " " $6 }' | while read user dir; do if [ ! -d "$dir" ]; then echo "The home directory ($dir) of user $user does not exist." else for file in $dir/.[A-Za-z0-9]*; do if [ ! -h "$file" -a -f "$file" ]; then fileperm=$(ls -ld $file | cut -f1 -d" ") if [ $(echo $fileperm | cut -c6) != "-" ]; then echo "Group Write permission set on file $file" fi if [ $(echo $fileperm | cut -c9) != "-" ]; then echo "Other Write permission set on file $file" fi fi done fi done

How it is fixed

Fix method: Guidance or infrastructure patch

Making global modifications to users' files without alerting the user community can result in unexpected outages and unhappy users. Therefore, it is recommended that a monitoring policy be established to report user dot file permissions and determine the action to be taken in accordance with site policy.