The macOS system must disable password authentication for SSH.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-259477	APPL-14-001150	SV-259477r1009591_rule	CCI-000186	high
Description
If remote logon through SSH is enabled, password-based authentication must be disabled for user logon. All users must go through multifactor authentication to prevent unauthenticated access and potential compromise to the system. Note: /etc/ssh/sshd_config will be automatically modified to its original state following any update or major upgrade to the operating system. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000067-GPOS-00035,SRG-OS-000105-GPOS-00052,SRG-OS-000106-GPOS-00053,SRG-OS-000107-GPOS-00054,SRG-OS-000108-GPOS-00055,SRG-OS-000112-GPOS-00057,SRG-OS-000125-GPOS-00065,SRG-OS-000375-GPOS-00160
STIG			Date
Apple macOS 14 (Sonoma) Security Technical Implementation Guide			2024-12-04

Details

Check Text (C-259477r1009591_chk)

Verify the macOS system is configured to disable password authentication for SSH with the following command: /usr/sbin/sshd -G | /usr/bin/grep -Ec '^(passwordauthentication\s+no|kbdinteractiveauthentication\s+no)' If the result is not "2", this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-63124r941052_fix)

Configure the macOS system to disable password authentication for SSH with the following command: include_dir=$(/usr/bin/awk '/^Include/ {print $2}' /etc/ssh/sshd_config | /usr/bin/tr -d '*') if [[ -z $include_dir ]]; then /usr/bin/sed -i.bk "1s/.*/Include \/etc\/ssh\/sshd_config.d\/\*/" /etc/ssh/sshd_config fi echo "passwordauthentication no" >> "${include_dir}01-mscp-sshd.conf" echo "kbdinteractiveauthentication no" >> "${include_dir}01-mscp-sshd.conf" for file in $(ls ${include_dir}); do if [[ "$file" == "100-macos.conf" ]]; then continue fi if [[ "$file" == "01-mscp-sshd.conf" ]]; then break fi /bin/mv ${include_dir}${file} ${include_dir}20-${file} done