1.294 ALMA-09-037530

Information

AlmaLinux OS 9 must be configured so that the Pluggable Authentication Module is configured to store only encrypted representations of passwords.

GROUP ID: V-269401
RULE ID: SV-269401r1050284

Passwords must be protected at all times, and encryption is the standard method for protecting passwords. If passwords are not encrypted, they can be plainly read (i.e., clear text) and easily compromised.

The system must use a strong hashing algorithm to store the password.

Solution

Configure AlmaLinux OS 9 to use the SHA-512 algorithm for password hashing.

Edit/modify the following line in the "/etc/pam.d/password-auth" file to include the sha512 option for pam_unix.so:

password sufficient pam_unix.so sha512 shadow rounds=100000 use_authtok

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/27039