Information
The operating system must be configured so that the SSH daemon uses privilege separation.
Rationale:
SSH daemon privilege separation causes the SSH process to drop root privileges when not needed, which would decrease the impact of software vulnerabilities in the unprivileged section.
Solution
Uncomment the UsePrivilegeSeparation keyword in /etc/ssh/sshd_config (this file may be named differently or be in a different location if using a version of SSH that is provided by a third-party vendor) and set the value to sandbox or yes:
Example: vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Add, uncomment or update the following line:
UsePrivilegeSeparation sandbox
The SSH service must be restarted for changes to take effect.
# systemctl restart sshd.service
Notes:
This Benchmark recommendation maps to:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Security Technical Implementation Guide:
Version 2, Release: 3 Benchmark Date: 26 Apr 2019
Vul ID: V-72265
Rule ID: SV-86889r3_rule
STIG ID: RHEL-07-040460
Severity: CAT II