Profile Applicability:
 Level 1


Description:
Duplicate Group IDs (GIDs) can cause conflicts in group ownership and permissions, potentially leading to unauthorized access or privilege escalation.

Rationale:
 Ensuring unique GIDs prevents ambiguity in group membership and access control, maintaining system security and integrity.

Impact:
 Pros:

  • Ensures consistent group permissions and ownership.

  • Simplifies management and auditing of groups.

Cons:

  • Changing GIDs may disrupt access if not properly coordinated.

Default Value:
 Duplicate GIDs may exist due to manual misconfiguration or system inconsistencies.

Pre-requisites:

  • Root or sudo privileges to review and modify group configurations.

Remediation:

Test Plan:

Using Linux command line:

  1. List all GIDs and identify duplicates:

    cut -d: -f3 /etc/group | sort | uniq -d

  2. Verify that the output is empty, indicating no duplicates.

Implementation Plan:

Using Linux command line:

  1. For each duplicate GID found, change the GID to a unique value:

    groupmod -g <new_gid> <groupname>

  2. Update any files or directories with the old GID to the new GID.

Backout Plan:

Using Linux command line:

  1. Restore original GIDs from backups if necessary.

  2. Revert file and directory ownership as required.

References: