Title

The system must require passwords contain at least one special character. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

To enforce the use of complex passwords, minimum numbers of characters of different classes are mandated. The use of complex passwords reduces the ability of attackers to successfully obtain valid passwords using guessing or exhaustive search techniques. Complexity requirements increase the password search space by requiring users to construct passwords from a larger character set than they may otherwise use.

Check Content

Check the ocredit setting. Procedure: Check the password ocredit option # grep pam_cracklib.so /etc/pam.d/common-password-pc Confirm the ocredit option is set to -1 as in the example: password required pam_cracklib.so ocredit=-1 There may be other options on the line. If no such line is found, or the ocredit is not -1 this is a finding.

Fix Text

Edit "/etc/pam.d/common-password-pc" to include the line: password required pam_cracklib.so ocredit=-1

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-44876r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-11973

Group Title: GEN000640

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.