SV-37318r1: The system must prevent the use of dictionary words for passwords. | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Security Technical Implementation Guide

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Assessment Title

Rule Text

The system must prevent the use of dictionary words for passwords.

Description

Discussion Text

An easily guessable password provides an open door to any external or internal malicious intruder. Many computer compromises occur as the result of account name and password guessing. This is generally done by someone with an automated script that uses repeated logon attempts until the correct account and password pair is guessed. Utilities, such as cracklib, can be used to validate passwords are not dictionary words and meet other criteria during password changes.

How this relates to the STIG checklist: STIG vs SCAP benchmark.

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Not mappedCCI-000189

Additional Details

Responsibility

System Administrator

IA Controls

IAIA-1, IAIA-2

References

DPMS Target Red Hat 5 DISA DPMS Target Red Hat 5 2154

SCC Automation Reference

The reconstructed evaluation script behind this rule's OVAL check(s) — every module a compound check combines, with this rule's own concrete values and DISA's SCC tool's real per-module mechanism curated from static teardown of SCC releases.

#!/bin/bash
# Reconstructed from oval:mil.disa.fso.rhel11:def:67
# The system must prevent the use of dictionary words for passwords.
# Per-module read mechanism curated from static teardown of DISA's SCC tool
# (SCAP Compliance Checker) -- see the SCC Automation Reference above.

# pam_cracklib required/requisite
# textfilecontent54_object (textfilecontent54_test)
test_1() {
  grep -Pq '^[ 	]*password[ 	]+(required|requisite)[ 	]+pam_cracklib.so' '/etc/pam.d/system-auth' &>/dev/null
}

if test_1; then
  echo "PASS"
else
  echo "FAIL"
fi

Assessment Script Powered by AISandbox-executed

A standalone Shell script to assess this control automatically. Review before running it in your environment.

Syntax-checked and actually executed in an isolated sandbox (not the real system this checks) — confirmed to run without errors.

#!/bin/sh
# OVAL Definition: oval:mil.disa.fso.rhel11:def:67


if grep -q "^[ \t]*password[ \t]+(required|requisite)[ \t]+pam_cracklib.so" /etc/pam.d/system-auth; then
  echo "PASS"
  exit 0
else
  echo "FAIL"
  exit 1
fi

Remediation

If /etc/pam.d/system-auth references /etc/pam.d/system-auth-ac refer to the man page for system-auth-ac for a description of how to add options not configurable with authconfig. Edit /etc/pam.d/system-auth and configure pam_cracklib by adding a line such as "password required pam_cracklib.so"