The application server must for password-based authentication, store passwords using an approved salted key derivation function, preferably using a keyed hash.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-204751	SRG-APP-000171	SRG-APP-000171-AS-000119	SV-204751r981682_rule	2025-02-11	4

Description
Applications must enforce password encryption when storing passwords. Passwords need to be protected at all times and encryption is the standard method for protecting passwords. If passwords are not encrypted, they can be plainly read and easily compromised. Application servers provide either a local user store or they integrate with enterprise user stores like LDAP. When the application server is responsible for creating or storing passwords, the application server must enforce the storage of encrypted representations of passwords.

Description

Applications must enforce password encryption when storing passwords. Passwords need to be protected at all times and encryption is the standard method for protecting passwords. If passwords are not encrypted, they can be plainly read and easily compromised. Application servers provide either a local user store or they integrate with enterprise user stores like LDAP. When the application server is responsible for creating or storing passwords, the application server must enforce the storage of encrypted representations of passwords.

ℹ️ Check
Review application server documentation and configuration to determine if the application server enforces the requirement to only store encrypted representations of passwords. If the application server is not configured to meet this requirement, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Configure the application server to only store encrypted representations of passwords.