7.1.12 Ensure no files or directories without an owner and a group exist

Information

Administrators may delete users or groups from the system and neglect to remove all files and/or directories owned by those users or groups.

A new user or group who is assigned a deleted user's user ID or group ID may then end up "owning" a deleted user or group's files, and thus have more access on the system than was intended.

Solution

Remove or set ownership and group ownership of these files and/or directories to an active user on the system as appropriate.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/17074