The root account must be the only account having unrestricted access to an AlmaLinux OS 9 system.

STIG ID: ALMA-09-023890 |  SRG: SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227 |  Severity: medium |  CCI:  | Vulnerability Id: V-269291

Vulnerability Discussion

An account has root authority if it has a user identifier (UID) of "0". Multiple accounts with a UID of "0" afford more opportunity for potential intruders to guess a password for a privileged account.

Proper configuration of sudo is recommended to afford multiple system administrators access to root privileges in an accountable manner.

Check

Change the UID of any account on the system, other than root which has a UID of "0".

If the account is associated with system commands or applications, the UID should be changed to one greater than "0" but less than "1000". Otherwise, assign a UID of greater than "1000" that has not already been assigned.

Fix

Verify that only the "root" account has a UID "0" assignment with the following command:

$ awk -F: '$3 == 0 {print $1}' /etc/passwd

root

If any accounts other than "root" have a UID of "0", this is a finding.