Detections
Analytics

1.177 OL09-00-001001

Information

OL 9 must ensure the password complexity module in the system-auth file is configured for three retries or less.

GROUP ID: V-271612
RULE ID: SV-271612r1091548

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. "pwquality" enforces complex password construction configuration and has the ability to limit brute-force attacks on the system.

OL 9 uses "pwquality" as a mechanism to enforce password complexity. This is set in both:
/etc/pam.d/password-auth
/etc/pam.d/system-auth

By limiting the number of attempts to meet the pwquality module complexity requirements before returning with an error, the system will audit abnormal attempts at password changes.

Solution

Configure OL 9 to limit the "pwquality" retry option to "3".

Add the following line to the "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" file (or modify the line to have the required value):

password required pam_pwquality.so retry=3

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/27024

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(1), CCI|CCI-004066, Rule-ID|SV-271612r1091548_rule, STIG-ID|OL09-00-001001, Vuln-ID|V-271612

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: eeb8b193455f82e5e4980ac53fca59d7c0c3bdd02abbb802caf0b980ffefb811