OL6-00-000056 - The system must require passwords to contain at least one numeric character - system-auth

Information

Requiring digits makes password guessing attacks more difficult by ensuring a larger search space.

Solution

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

Edit /etc/pam.d/system-auth and /etc/pam.d/password-auth adding 'dcredit=-1' after pam_cracklib.so to require use of a digit 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-000194, Rule-ID|SV-208831r793616_rule, STIG-ID|OL6-00-000056, STIG-Legacy|SV-65117, STIG-Legacy|V-50911, Vuln-ID|V-208831

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 82a03d0d3910bf5fa84ba72ba9e24d6d55e6fb1b1d28e76fa9d59e3d30f690ca