RHEL-06-000030 - The system must not have accounts configured with blank or null passwords - password-auth.

Information

If an account has an empty password, anyone could log in and run commands with the privileges of that account. Accounts with empty passwords should never be used in operational environments.

Solution

If an account is configured for password authentication but does not have an assigned password, it may be possible to log onto the account without authentication. Remove any instances of the 'nullok' option in '/etc/pam.d/system-auth' and '/etc/pam.d/password-auth' to prevent logons with empty passwords.

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_RHEL_6_V2R2_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

References: 800-53|CM-6b., CAT|I, CCI|CCI-000366, Rule-ID|SV-217868r603264_rule, STIG-ID|RHEL-06-000030, STIG-Legacy|SV-50298, STIG-Legacy|V-38497, Vuln-ID|V-217868

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 67ba29493be5cbe0bac6f997d33e75323810e5e2dae4fcb5e7dd280fc4a88fa9