macOS 26 - Tahoe

The macOS system must disable Location Services

STIG ID: APPL-26-002004 | SRG: SRG-OS-000095-GPOS-00049 | Severity: Medium | CCI: CCI-000381 | Vulnerability ID: V-277087

Description

Location Services must be disabled.

The information system must be configured to provide only essential capabilities. Disabling Location Services helps prevent unauthorized connection of devices, transfer of information, and tunneling.

Check

C-81242r1148711_chk

Verify the macOS system is configured to disable Location Services with the following command:

/usr/bin/sudo -u _locationd /usr/bin/osascript -l JavaScript << EOS
$.NSUserDefaults.alloc.initWithSuiteName('com.apple.locationd')\
.objectForKey('LocationServicesEnabled').js
EOS

If the result is not "false", this is a finding.

Fix

F-81147r1149372_fix

Configure the macOS system to disable Location Services with the following command:

/usr/bin/defaults write /var/db/locationd/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.locationd LocationServicesEnabled -bool false;
pid=$(/bin/launchctl print system | /usr/bin/awk '/\tcom.apple.locationd/ {print $1}')
kill -9 $pid