Cis Gcp Cos 6.2.8

---
name: cis-gcp-cos-6.2.8
description: "Ensure users' home directories permissions are 750 or more restrictive"
category: cis-gcp-cos
version: "1.2.0"
author: cyberstrike-official
tags: [cis, gcp, container-optimized-os, user-accounts, home-directories]
cis_id: "6.2.8"
cis_benchmark: "CIS Google Container-Optimized OS Benchmark v1.2.0"
tech_stack: [gcp, linux]
cwe_ids: []
chains_with: []
prerequisites: []
severity_boost: {}
---

# 6.2.8 Ensure users' home directories permissions are 750 or more restrictive (Automated)

## Description

While the system administrator can establish secure permissions for users' home directories, the users can easily override these.

## Rationale

Group or world-writable user home directories may enable malicious users to steal or modify other users' data or to gain another user's system privileges.

## Audit Procedure

Run the following script and verify no results are returned:

```bash
#!/bin/bash
grep -E -v '^(halt|sync|shutdown)' /etc/passwd | awk -F: '($7 != "'"$(which nologin)"'" && $7 != "/bin/false") { print $1 " " $6 }' | while read user dir; do
  if [ ! -d "$dir" ]; then
    echo "The home directory ($dir) of user $user does not exist."
  else
    dirperm=$(ls -ld $dir | cut -f1 -d" ")
    if [ $(echo $dirperm | cut -c6) != "-" ]; then
      echo "Group Write permission set on the home directory ($dir) of user $user"
    fi
    if [ $(echo $dirperm | cut -c8) != "-" ]; then
      echo "Other Read permission set on the home directory ($dir) of user $user"
    fi
    if [ $(echo $dirperm | cut -c9) != "-" ]; then
      echo "Other Write permission set on the home directory ($dir) of user $user"
    fi
    if [ $(echo $dirperm | cut -c10) != "-" ]; then
      echo "Other Execute permission set on the home directory ($dir) of user $user"
    fi
  fi
done
```

## Expected Result

No results should be returned.

## Remediation

Making global modifications to user home directories without alerting the user community can result in unexpected outages and unhappy users. Therefore, it is recommended that a monitoring policy be established to report user file permissions and determine the action to be taken in accordance with site policy.

## Additional Information

On some distributions the `/sbin/nologin` should be replaced with `/usr/sbin/nologin`.

## CIS Controls

| Controls Version | Control                                               | IG 1 | IG 2 | IG 3 |
| ---------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
| v8               | 3.3 Configure Data Access Control Lists               | x    | x    | x    |
| v7               | 14.6 Protect Information through Access Control Lists | x    | x    | x    |

## Profile

- Level 2 - Server