RHEL-07-010140 - The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that when passwords are changed or new passwords are assigned, the new password must contain at least one numeric character.

Warning! Audit Deprecated

This audit has been deprecated and will be removed in a future update.

View Next Audit Version

Information

Use of a complex password helps to increase the time and resources required to compromise the password. Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks.

Password complexity is one factor of several that determines how long it takes to crack a password. The more complex the password, the greater the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised.

Solution

Configure the operating system to enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one numeric character be used by setting the 'dcredit' option.

Add the following line to /etc/security/pwquality.conf (or modify the line to have the required value):

dcredit = -1

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_RHEL_7_V3R10_STIG.zip

Item Details

References: CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000194, Rule-ID|SV-204409r603261_rule, STIG-ID|RHEL-07-010140, STIG-Legacy|SV-86531, STIG-Legacy|V-71907, Vuln-ID|V-204409

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 99092d02acc2bea497c3b2b1e704ba2dd379f30abae63172bc0389b87ecaa226