OL08-00-010150 - OL 8 operating systems booted with a BIOS must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes.

Information

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 OL 8 and is designed to require a password to boot into single-user mode or modify the boot menu.

Solution

Configure the system to require a grub bootloader password for the grub superusers account with the grub2-setpassword command, which creates/overwrites the '/boot/grub2/user.cfg' file.

Generate an encrypted grub2 password for the grub superusers account with the following command:

$ sudo grub2-setpassword
Enter password:
Confirm password:

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_Oracle_Linux_8_V2R1_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: ACCESS CONTROL

References: 800-53|AC-3, CAT|I, CCI|CCI-000213, Rule-ID|SV-248540r958472_rule, STIG-ID|OL08-00-010150, Vuln-ID|V-248540

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: b9448d2fc78c1b5f2994fb0cc124420035c91bb375cf4befd9d4db8ca9957b61