The Photon operating system must enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one numeric character be used.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-258816	SRG-OS-000071-GPOS-00039	PHTN-40-000037	SV-258816r1003631_rule	2024-07-11	2

Description
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.

Description

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.

ℹ️ Check
At the command line, run the following command to verify at least one numeric character be used: # grep '^password.*pam_pwquality.so' /etc/pam.d/system-password Example result: password requisite pam_pwquality.so dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 lcredit=-1 ocredit=-1 minlen=15 difok=8 enforce_for_root dictcheck=1 If the "dcredit" option is not < 0, is missing or commented out, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Navigate to and open: /etc/pam.d/system-password Configure the pam_pwquality.so line to have the "dcredit" option set to "-1" as follows: password requisite pam_pwquality.so dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 lcredit=-1 ocredit=-1 minlen=15 difok=8 enforce_for_root dictcheck=1 Note: On vCenter appliances, the equivalent file must be edited under "/etc/applmgmt/appliance", if one exists, for the changes to persist after a reboot.

✔️ Fix

Navigate to and open: /etc/pam.d/system-password Configure the pam_pwquality.so line to have the "dcredit" option set to "-1" as follows: password requisite pam_pwquality.so dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 lcredit=-1 ocredit=-1 minlen=15 difok=8 enforce_for_root dictcheck=1 Note: On vCenter appliances, the equivalent file must be edited under "/etc/applmgmt/appliance", if one exists, for the changes to persist after a reboot.