SV-41826r1: The system must require passwords contain at least one uppercase alphabetic character. | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Security Technical Implementation Guide

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Assessment Title

Rule Text

The system must require passwords contain at least one uppercase alphabetic character.

Description

Discussion Text

To enforce the use of complex passwords, minimum numbers of characters of different classes are mandated. The use of complex passwords reduces the ability of attackers to successfully obtain valid passwords using guessing or exhaustive search techniques. Complexity requirements increase the password search space by requiring users to construct passwords from a larger character set than they may otherwise use.

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

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Not mappedCCI-000192CCE-14672-0

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.

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:60
if [ ! -f "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" ]; then echo "PASS"; exit 0; fi
if grep -q 'password required pam_cracklib.so ucredit=-1' /etc/pam.d/system-auth && grep -q '^password include system-auth-ac$' /etc/pam.d/system-auth && grep -q 'password required pam_cracklib.so ucredit=-1' /etc/pam.d/system-auth | grep -F -B 1 'password include system-auth-ac' > /dev/null ]; then echo "PASS"; exit 0; else echo "FAIL"; exit 1; fi

Remediation

Edit "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" to include the line:

password required pam_cracklib.so ucredit=-1

prior to the "password include system-auth-ac" line.