SV-253087r1016318: TOSS must enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one special character be used. | Tri-Lab Operating System Stack (TOSS) 4 STIG SCAP Benchmark

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Assessment Title

Rule Text

TOSS must enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one special character be used.

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. TOSS utilizes "pwquality" as a mechanism to enforce password complexity. Note that to require special characters without degrading the "minlen" value, the credit value must be expressed as a negative number in "/etc/security/pwquality.conf."

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

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Not mappedCCI-004066Not mappedCCI-001619

References

DPMS Target TOSS 4 DISA DPMS Target TOSS 4 5469

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.toss4os:def:253087
# TOSS must enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one special character be used.
# Per-module read mechanism curated from static teardown of DISA's SCC tool
# (SCAP Compliance Checker) -- see the SCC Automation Reference above.

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

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
# DISA STIG / SCAP compliance check for password complexity requirement (oval:mil.disa.stig.toss4os:def:253087)
if [ ! -f "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" ]; then echo "PASS"; exit 0; fi
if grep -qE '^\\s*ocredit\\s*=\\s*(-?\\d*)\\s*(?:#.*)?$' /etc/security/pwquality.conf; then
    ocredit=$(grep -oE '^\\s*ocredit\\s*=\\s*(-?\\d*)\\s*(?:#.*)?$' /etc/security/pwquality.conf | cut -d= -f2)
    if [ "$ocredit" -lt "0" ]; then echo "PASS"; exit 0; fi
fi
echo "FAIL"; exit 1

Remediation

Configure the operating system to enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one special character be used by setting the "ocredit" option.

Add the following line to /etc/security/pwquality.conf (or modify the line to have the required value):

ocredit = -1