RHEL-06-000058 - The system must require passwords to contain at least one special character - system-auth.

Information

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

Solution

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

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

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_RHEL_6_V2R2_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(1)(a), CAT|III, CCI|CCI-001619, Rule-ID|SV-217894r603264_rule, STIG-ID|RHEL-06-000058, STIG-Legacy|SV-50371, STIG-Legacy|V-38570, Vuln-ID|V-217894

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 8cd80b6285d879c489463737b4bccd6080f57c98a2007e72acb73275a19c3f3f