RHEL-08-020150 - RHEL 8 must require the maximum number of repeating characters be limited to three when passwords are changed.

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.

RHEL 8 utilizes 'pwquality' as a mechanism to enforce password complexity. The 'maxrepeat' option sets the maximum number of allowed same consecutive characters in a new password.

Solution

Configure the operating system to require the change of the number of repeating consecutive characters when passwords are changed by setting the 'maxrepeat' option.

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

maxrepeat = 3

Remove any configurations that conflict with the above value.

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_RHEL_8_V1R8_STIG.zip

Item Details

References: CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000195, Rule-ID|SV-230361r858779_rule, STIG-ID|RHEL-08-020150, Vuln-ID|V-230361

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: dcb1fa9285e491123507eb88cb340db9c982a762cd440e38637602bf73a21f69