RHEL 10 must enable certificate-based smart card authentication.
Overview
| Finding ID | Version | Rule ID | IA Controls | Severity |
| V-281324 | RHEL-10-701220 | SV-281324r1167122_rule | CCI-004046 | medium |
| Description | ||||
| Without the use of multifactor authentication, the ease of access to privileged functions is greatly increased. Multifactor authentication requires using two or more factors to achieve authentication. A privileged account is defined as an information system account with authorizations of a privileged user. The DOD Common Access Card (CAC) with DOD-approved public key infrastructure (PKI) is an example of multifactor authentication. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000375-GPOS-00160, SRG-OS-000105-GPOS-00052, SRG-OS-000106-GPOS-00053, SRG-OS-000107-GPOS-00054, SRG-OS-000108-GPOS-00055 | ||||
| STIG | Date | |||
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 Security Technical Implementation Guide | 2026-03-11 | |||
Details
Check Text (C-281324r1167122_chk)
Note: If the system administrator demonstrates the use of an approved alternate multifactor authentication method, this requirement is not applicable.
Verify RHEL 10 enables smart cards in the System Security Services Daemon (SSSD) with the following command:
$ sudo grep -ir pam_cert_auth /etc/sssd/sssd.conf /etc/sssd/conf.d/
/etc/sssd/conf.d/sssd.conf:pam_cert_auth = True
If "pam_cert_auth" is not set to "True", the line is commented out, or the line is missing, this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-85790r1167121_fix)
Configure RHEL 10 to enable certificate-based smart card authentication.
Edit the file "/etc/sssd/sssd.conf" or a configuration file in "/etc/sssd/conf.d" and add or edit the following line:
pam_cert_auth = True