PHTN-30-000050 - The Photon operating system must enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one special character 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.

Solution

Navigate to and open:

/etc/pam.d/system-password

Add the following, replacing any existing 'pam_cracklib.so' line:

password requisite pam_cracklib.so dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 lcredit=-1 ocredit=-1 minlen=8 minclass=4 difok=4 retry=3 maxsequence=0 enforce_for_root

Note: On vCenter appliances, the equivalent file must be edited under '/etc/applmgmt/appliance', if one exists, for the changes to persist after a reboot.

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_VMW_vSphere_7-0_Y24M01_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(1)(a), CAT|II, CCI|CCI-001619, Rule-ID|SV-256524r887246_rule, STIG-ID|PHTN-30-000050, Vuln-ID|V-256524

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 376d3bc7176614522b9352c30fa5bf4525bbf60673f952d4259d231c4f4f487c