Ensure Appropriate Permissions Are Enabled for System Wide Applications

HighLevel 1Automatedmacos

Description

Applications in the System Applications Directory (/Applications) should be world- executable since that is their reason to be on the system. They should not be world- writable and allow any process or user to alter them for other processes or users to then execute modified versions. Some application vendors use a world-writable folder for their applications. This is against the standard practice on POSIX systems.

How it is checked

Audit method: Shell command

shell

[ -d /System/Volumes/Data/Applications ] || exit 1
/usr/bin/find /System/Volumes/Data/Applications -iname "*.app" -type d -perm -2 -ls 2>/dev/null | /usr/bin/grep -v Xcode.app | /usr/bin/wc -l | /usr/bin/xargs

Expected output: 0

How it is fixed

Fix method: Guidance or infrastructure patch

Terminal: IFS=$'\n' for apps in $( sudo /usr/bin/find /System/Volumes/Data/Applications -iname "*\.app" -type d -perm -2 | grep -v Xcode.app ); do sudo /bin/chmod -R o-w "$apps" done.

Properties

Operating systems: macos-26
Tags: macossystem-access
Reference: CIS Apple macOS 26 Tahoe Benchmark v1.1.0 - 5.1.5 Ensure Appropriate Permissions Are Enabled for System Wide Applications

Check this host

Run this on a machine you are allowed to audit. The scan is read-only.

shell

tmaegis scan --target macos