RHEL 8 operating systems booted with a BIOS must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes.
Severity | Group ID | Group Title | Version | Rule ID | Date | STIG Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| high | V-230235 | SRG-OS-000080-GPOS-00048 | RHEL-08-010150 | SV-230235r1017054_rule | 2025-03-26 | 2 |
| 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 RHEL 8 and is designed to require a password to boot into single-user mode or make modifications to the boot menu. |
| ℹ️ Check |
|---|
| For systems that use UEFI, this is Not Applicable. Check to see if an encrypted grub superusers password is set. On systems that use a BIOS, use the following command: $ sudo grep -iw grub2_password /boot/grub2/user.cfg GRUB2_PASSWORD=grub.pbkdf2.sha512.[password_hash] If the grub superusers password does not begin with "grub.pbkdf2.sha512", this is a finding. |
| ✔️ Fix |
|---|
| Configure the system to require a grub bootloader password for the grub superusers account with the grub2-setpassword command, which creates/overwrites the /boot/grub2/user.cfg file. Generate an encrypted grub2 password for the grub superusers account with the following command: $ sudo grub2-setpassword Enter password: Confirm password: |