OL 8 operating systems booted with United Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) must require authentication upon booting into single-user mode and maintenance.
Overview
| Finding ID | Version | Rule ID | IA Controls | Severity |
| V-248537 | OL08-00-010140 | SV-248537r958472_rule | CCI-000213 | high |
| 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 OL 8 and is designed to require a password to boot into single-user mode or modify the boot menu. | ||||
| STIG | Date | |||
| Oracle Linux 8 Security Technical Implementation Guide | 2025-05-13 | |||
Details
Check Text (C-248537r958472_chk)
For systems that use BIOS, this is not applicable.
Determine if an encrypted password is set for the grub superusers account. On systems that use UEFI, use the following command:
$ sudo grep -iw grub2_password /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/user.cfg
GRUB2_PASSWORD=grub.pbkdf2.sha512.[password_hash]
If the grub superusers account password does not begin with "grub.pbkdf2.sha512", this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-51925r779176_fix)
Configure the system to require an encrypted grub bootloader password for the grub superusers account with the grub2-setpassword command, which creates/overwrites the "/boot/efi/EFI/redhat/user.cfg" file.
Generate an encrypted grub2 password for the grub superusers account with the following command:
$ sudo grub2-setpassword
Enter password:
Confirm password: