RHEL-07-010119 - The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that when passwords are changed or new passwords are established, pwquality must be used.

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. 'pwquality' enforces complex password construction configuration and has the ability to limit brute-force attacks on the system.

Solution

Configure the operating system to use 'pwquality' to enforce password complexity rules.

Add the following line to '/etc/pam.d/system-auth' (or modify the line to have the required value):

password requisite pam_pwquality.so retry=3

Note: The value of 'retry' should be between '1' and '3'.

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_RHEL_7_V3R15_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(1)(a), CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000192, Rule-ID|SV-204406r982195_rule, STIG-ID|RHEL-07-010119, STIG-Legacy|SV-87811, STIG-Legacy|V-73159, Vuln-ID|V-204406

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 0f9f1408d6975449d05053d364fbb2a9e738c022f8c561f08f297eb649cc74ec