Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems version 7.2 or newer with a Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes.
An XCCDF Rule
Description
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.
- ID
- SV-204438r744095_rule
- Version
- RHEL-07-010482
- Severity
- High
- References
- Updated
Remediation Templates
A Manual Procedure
Configure the system to encrypt the boot 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: