OL6-00-000057 - The system must require passwords to contain at least one uppercase alphabetic character - system-auth

Information

Requiring a minimum number of uppercase characters makes password guessing attacks more difficult by ensuring a larger search space.

Solution

The pam_cracklib module's 'ucredit=' parameter controls requirements for usage of uppercase letters in a password. When set to a negative number, any password will be required to contain that many uppercase characters. When set to a positive number, pam_cracklib will grant +1 additional length credit for each uppercase character.

Edit /etc/pam.d/system-auth and /etc/pam.d/password-auth adding 'ucredit=-1' after pam_cracklib.so to require use of an uppercase character in passwords.

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_Oracle_Linux_6_V2R7_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(1)(a), CAT|III, CCI|CCI-000192, Rule-ID|SV-208832r793617_rule, STIG-ID|OL6-00-000057, STIG-Legacy|SV-65119, STIG-Legacy|V-50913, Vuln-ID|V-208832

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 1078e57a1acd2329e78a8cb454a7fa14af0516ce2a3694da3d1179d37ce47a8f