Title

The system must enforce compliance of the entire password during authentication. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Some common password hashing schemes only process the first eight characters of a user's password, which reduces the effective strength of the password.

Check Content

Verify no password hash in /etc/passwd or /etc/shadow begins with a character other than an underscore (_) or dollar sign ($). # cut -d ':' -f2 /etc/passwd | egrep -v '^[*!$_]' # cut -d ':' -f2 /etc/shadow | egrep -v '^[*!$_]' If any unlocked password hash is present without an initial underscore (_) or dollar sign ($) character, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Edit /etc/security/policy.conf and add or change the CRYPT_DEFAULT setting to something other than __unix__, such as 6. Allowable values for CRYPT_DEFAULT may be found in the /etc/security/crypt.conf file. Change any passwords using non-compliant hashes.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-227584r603266_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-227584

Group Title: SRG-OS-000078

Expert Comments

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