diff --git a/salt/modules/timezone.py b/salt/modules/timezone.py
index <HASH>..<HASH> 100644
--- a/salt/modules/timezone.py
+++ b/salt/modules/timezone.py
@@ -160,7 +160,7 @@ def get_hwclock():
     elif 'Debian' in __grains__['os_family']:
         cmd = 'grep "UTC=" /etc/default/rcS | grep -vE "^#"'
         out = __salt__['cmd.run'](cmd).split('=')
-        if out[1] == 'yes':
+        if len(out) > 1 and out[1] == 'yes':
             return 'UTC'
         else:
             return 'localtime'
/etc/default/rcS file does not contain UTC boolean value on Debian Wheezy, causes out-of-bounds exception when attempting to lookup given value