SV-204408r982196: The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that when passwords are changed or new passwords are established, the new password must contain at least one lower-case character. | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 STIG SCAP Benchmark

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Assessment Title

Rule Text

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that when passwords are changed or new passwords are established, the new password must contain at least one lower-case character.

Description

Discussion Text

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.

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

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Not mappedCCI-000193SV-86529V-71905

References

DPMS Target Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 DISA DPMS Target Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 2899

Checks

DISA STIG (Manual Reference)

Note: The value to require a number of lower-case characters to be set is expressed as a negative number in "/etc/security/pwquality.conf".

Check the value for "lcredit" in "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" with the following command:

# grep lcredit /etc/security/pwquality.conf 
lcredit = -1 

If the value of "lcredit" is not set to a negative value, this is a finding.

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.stig.rhel7os:def:204408
# The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that when passwords are changed or new passwords are established, the new password must contain at least one lower-case character.
# Per-module read mechanism curated from static teardown of DISA's SCC tool
# (SCAP Compliance Checker) -- see the SCC Automation Reference above.

# at least one lowercase character is required
# textfilecontent54_object (textfilecontent54_test)
test_1() {
  ( [ "$(sed -En 's/^\s*lcredit\s*=\s*(-?\d*)\s*(?:#.*)?$/\1/p' '/etc/security/pwquality.conf')" -lt 0 ] ) || ( [ "$(grep -rhP --include='*.conf' '^\s*lcredit\s*=\s*(-?\d*)\s*(?:#.*)?$' '/etc/security/pwquality.conf.d' | sed -En 's/^\s*lcredit\s*=\s*(-?\d*)\s*(?:#.*)?$/\1/p')" -lt 0 ] )
}

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

Remediation

Configure the system to require at least one lower-case character when creating or changing a password.

Add or modify the following line 
in "/etc/security/pwquality.conf":

lcredit = -1