# Cis GCP Cos 6.2.8

> Ensure users' home directories permissions are 750 or more restrictive

- Skill: `cyberstrikeus/cis-gcp-cos-6-2-8` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add cyberstrikeus/cis-gcp-cos-6-2-8`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/cyberstrikeus/cis-gcp-cos-6-2-8/raw
- Safety review: PASS (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector CAUTION)
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: DevOps & Infra
- Author: cyberstrikeus (https://skillmd.com/u/cyberstrikeus)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/cyberstrikeus/cis-gcp-cos-6-2-8

---


# 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