Ensure No World-Writable Files Exist

Description

It is generally a good idea to remove global (other) write access to a file when it is discovered. However, check with documentation for specific applications before making changes. Also, monitor for recurring world-writable files, as these may be symptoms of a misconfigured application or user account. Finally, this applies to real files and not virtual files that are a part of pseudo file systems such as sysfs or procfs.

Rationale

Data in world-writable files can be modified by any user on the system. In almost all circumstances, files can be configured using a combination of user and group permissions to support whatever legitimate access is needed without the risk caused by world-writable files.

Remediation

Shell script

The following script can be run on the host to remediate the issue.

find / -xdev -type f -perm -002 -exec chmod o-w {} \;