macOS 26 - Tahoe

The macOS system must enable Recovery Lock

STIG ID: APPL-26-005120 | SRG: SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227 | Severity: Medium | CCI: CCI-000366 | Vulnerability ID: V-277180

Description

A Recovery Lock password must be enabled and set.

Single user mode, recovery mode, the Startup Manager, and several other tools are available on macOS by holding down specific key combinations during startup. Setting a recovery lock restricts access to these tools.

IMPORTANT: Recovery lock passwords are not supported on Intel devices. This rule is only applicable to Apple Silicon devices.

Check

C-81335r1149337_chk

For non-Apple Silicon systems, this is not applicable.

Verify the macOS system is configured with Recovery Lock with the following command:

/usr/libexec/mdmclient QuerySecurityInfo 2>/dev/null | /usr/bin/grep -c "IsRecoveryLockEnabled = 1"

If the result is not "1", this is a finding.

Fix

F-81240r1148991_fix

Configure the macOS system with Recovery Lock with the SetRecoveryLock command. This can be used to set a Recovery Lock password and must be from the MDM.