RHEL 9 must disable the ability of a user to accidentally press Ctrl-Alt-Del and cause a system to shut down or reboot.
Overview
| Finding ID | Version | Rule ID | IA Controls | Severity |
| V-258031 | RHEL-09-271105 | SV-258031r1045114_rule | CCI-000366 | medium |
| Description | ||||
| A locally logged-in user who presses Ctrl-Alt-Del, when at the console, can reboot the system. If accidentally pressed, as could happen in the case of mixed OS environment, this can create the risk of short-term loss of availability of systems due to unintentional reboot. | ||||
| STIG | Date | |||
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Security Technical Implementation Guide | 2025-05-14 | |||
Details
Check Text (C-258031r1045114_chk)
Verify RHEL 9 is configured to ignore the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence in the GNOME desktop with the following command:
Note: This requirement assumes the use of the RHEL 9 default graphical user interface, the GNOME desktop environment. If the system does not have any graphical user interface installed, this requirement is Not Applicable.
$ gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys logout
"['']"
If the GNOME desktop is configured to shut down when Ctrl-Alt-Del is pressed, this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-61696r1045113_fix)
Configure RHEL 9 to ignore the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence in the GNOME desktop.
Run the following command to set the media-keys logout setting:
$ gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys logout "['']"
Run the following command to update the database:
$ sudo dconf update