Title

SLEM 5 must enforce passwords that contain at least one special character. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Use of a complex password helps 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 in determining 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. Special characters are not alphanumeric. Examples include: ~ ! @ # $ % ^ *.

Check Content

Verify SLEM 5 enforces password complexity by requiring at least one special character with the following command: > grep pam_cracklib.so /etc/pam.d/common-password password requisite pam_cracklib.so ocredit=-1 If the value for "ocredit" is not "-1", if "ucredit" is missing from the line, the second column value different from "requisite", the line is commented out, or the line is missing, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure SLEM 5 to enforce password complexity by requiring at least one special character. Edit "/etc/pam.d/common-password" and edit the line containing "pam_cracklib.so" to contain the option "ocredit=-1" after the third column.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-261380r996572_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-261380

Group Title: SRG-OS-000266-GPOS-00101

Expert Comments

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