The macOS system must configure audit log files to be owned by root.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-268456	APPL-15-001012	SV-268456r1034308_rule		Medium

Description

Audit log files must be owned by root. The audit service must be configured to create log files with the correct ownership to prevent normal users from reading audit logs. Audit logs contain sensitive data about the system and users. If log files are set to be readable and writable only by system administrators, the risk is mitigated. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000057-GPOS-00027, SRG-OS-000058-GPOS-00028, SRG-OS-000059-GPOS-00029, SRG-OS-000256-GPOS-00097, SRG-OS-000257-GPOS-00098, SRG-OS-000258-GPOS-00099

STIG	Date
Apple macOS 15 (Sequoia) Security Technical Implementation Guide	2025-05-05

Details

Check Text (C-72486r1034306_chk)

Verify the macOS system is configured with audit log files owned by root with the following command:

/bin/ls -n $(/usr/bin/grep '^dir' /etc/security/audit_control | /usr/bin/awk -F: '{print $2}') | /usr/bin/awk '{s+=$3} END {print s}'

If the result is not "0", this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-72387r1034307_fix)

Configure the macOS system with audit log files owned by root with the following command:

/usr/sbin/chown -R root /var/audit/*