The system must require passwords contain at least one special character.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-11973	GEN000640	SV-37287r1_rule	IAIA-1 IAIA-2	Medium

Description
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.

Description

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.

STIG	Date
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2013-01-17

Details

Check Text ( C-35981r1_chk )
Check the ocredit setting. Procedure: Check the password ocredit option # grep pam_cracklib.so /etc/pam.d/system-auth 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 (F-31235r1_fix)
Edit "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" to include the line: password required pam_cracklib.so ocredit=-1 prior to the "password include system-auth-ac" line.