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V-259480

CAT II (Medium)

The macOS system must disable Location Services.

Rule ID

SV-259480r958478_rule

STIG

Apple macOS 14 (Sonoma) Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V2R3

CCIs

CCI-000381

Discussion

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

Check Content

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 Text

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; /bin/launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.locationd

The system may need to be restarted for the update to take effect.