The system must require passwords to contain at least one lower-case alphabetic character.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-217895	RHEL-06-000059	SV-217895r505923_rule		Low

Description
Requiring a minimum number of lower-case characters makes password guessing attacks more difficult by ensuring a larger search space.

STIG	Date
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2020-09-03

Details

Check Text ( C-19376r462382_chk )
To check how many lower-case characters are required in a password, run the following command: $ grep pam_cracklib /etc/pam.d/system-auth /etc/pam.d/password-auth Note: The "lcredit" parameter (as a negative number) will indicate how many lower-case characters are required. The DoD requires at least one lower-case character in a password. This would appear as "lcredit=-1". If “lcredit” is not found or not set to the required value, this is a finding.

Check Text ( C-19376r462382_chk )

To check how many lower-case characters are required in a password, run the following command:

$ grep pam_cracklib /etc/pam.d/system-auth /etc/pam.d/password-auth

Note: The "lcredit" parameter (as a negative number) will indicate how many lower-case characters are required. The DoD requires at least one lower-case character in a password. This would appear as "lcredit=-1".

If “lcredit” is not found or not set to the required value, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-19374r462383_fix)
The pam_cracklib module's "lcredit=" parameter controls requirements for usage of lower-case letters in a password. When set to a negative number, any password will be required to contain that many lower-case characters. Edit /etc/pam.d/system-auth and /etc/pam.d/password-auth adding "lcredit=-1" after pam_cracklib.so to require use of a lower-case character in passwords.