DISA STIGS Viewer

OL 9 must prevent system daemons from using Kerberos for authentication.

Overview

Finding ID Version Rule ID IA Controls Severity
V-271767 OL09-00-002429 SV-271767r1092013_rule   Medium
Description
Unapproved mechanisms used for authentication to the cryptographic module are not verified; therefore, cannot be relied upon to provide confidentiality or integrity and DOD data may be compromised. OL 9 systems using encryption are required to use FIPS-compliant mechanisms for authenticating to cryptographic modules. The key derivation function (KDF) in Kerberos is not FIPS compatible. Ensuring the system does not have any keytab files present prevents system daemons from using Kerberos for authentication. A keytab is a file containing pairs of Kerberos principals and encrypted keys. FIPS 140-3 is the current standard for validating that mechanisms used to access cryptographic modules use authentication that meets DOD requirements. This allows for Security Levels 1, 2, 3, or 4 for use on a general-purpose computing system.
STIG Date
Oracle Linux 9 Security Technical Implementation Guide 2025-05-08

Details

Check Text (C-75817r1092011_chk)
Verify that OL 9 prevents system daemons from using Kerberos for authentication with the following command:

$ ls -al /etc/*.keytab
ls: cannot access '/etc/*.keytab': No such file or directory

If this command produces any "keytab" file(s), this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-75724r1092012_fix)
Configure OL 9 to prevent system daemons from using Kerberos for authentication.

Remove any files with the .keytab extension from the operating system.

$ sudo rm -f /etc/*.keytab