Detections
Analytics

1.177 OL08-00-020170

Information

OL 8 must require the change of at least eight characters when passwords are changed.

GROUP ID: V-248693
RULE ID: SV-248693r1015053

Use of a complex password helps to increase the time and resources required to compromise the password. Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks.

Password complexity is one factor of several that determines how long it takes to crack a password. The more complex the password, the greater the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised.

OL 8 uses "pwquality" as a mechanism to enforce password complexity. The "difok" option sets the number of characters in a password that must not be present in the old password.

Solution

Configure OL 8 to require the change of at least eight of the total number of characters when passwords are changed by setting the "difok" option.

Add or update the following line in the "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" file or a configuration file in the "/etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/" directory:

difok = 8

Remove any configurations that conflict with the above value.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/23791

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(1), CAT|III, CCI|CCI-000195, CCI|CCI-004066, Rule-ID|SV-248693r1015053_rule, STIG-ID|OL08-00-020170, Vuln-ID|V-248693

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 234104166634b716be1f559eeba0421d5b23518fdaa7d60b94f388aac2be4ce4