1.4.6 Ensure version 7.2 or newer booted with UEFI have a unique name for the grub superusers account - UEFI must have a unique name for the grub superusers account when booting into single-user mode and maintenance.

Information

The Linux operating systems version 7.2 or newer booted with United Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) must have a unique name for the grub superusers account when booting into single-user mode and maintenance.

Rationale:

If the system does not require valid authentication before it boots into single-user or maintenance mode, anyone who invokes single-user or maintenance mode is granted privileged access to all files on the system. GRUB 2 is the default boot loader for RHEL 7 and is designed to require a password to boot into single-user mode or make modifications to the boot menu.

Solution

Configure the system to have a unique name for the grub superusers account.
Edit the /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg file and add or modify the following lines in the '### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/01_users ###' section:

set superusers='[someuniquestringhere]'
export superusers
password_pbkdf2 [someuniquestringhere] ${GRUB2_PASSWORD}

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/3636

Item Details

Category: ACCESS CONTROL

References: 800-53|AC-3, CCI|CCI-000213, Rule-ID|SV-244558r744066_rule, STIG-ID|RHEL-07-010492

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: d5c7d0c2ebff84900abdc8c0f2a2e03f2b0f0983455a2d27594f17b2926e5250