The Photon operating system must configure sshd to ignore user-specific "known_host" files.
Overview
| Finding ID | Version | Rule ID | IA Controls | Severity |
| V-256556 | PHTN-30-000087 | SV-256556r991589_rule | Medium |
| Description |
| Secure Shell (SSH) trust relationships enable trivial lateral spread after a host compromise and therefore must be explicitly disabled. Individual users can have a local list of trusted remote machines that must also be ignored while disabling host-based authentication generally. |
| STIG | Date |
| VMware vSphere 7.0 vCenter Appliance Photon OS Security Technical Implementation Guide | 2024-12-16 |
Details
| Check Text (C-60231r887340_chk) |
| At the command line, run the following command: # sshd -T|&grep -i IgnoreUserKnownHosts Expected result: IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes If the output does not match the expected result, this is a finding. |
| Fix Text (F-60174r887341_fix) |
| Navigate to and open: /etc/ssh/sshd_config Ensure the "IgnoreUserKnownHosts" line is uncommented and set to the following: IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes At the command line, run the following command: # systemctl restart sshd.service |