The system must require passwords to contain no more than three consecutive repeating characters.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-38693	RHEL-06-000299	SV-50494r2_rule		Low

Description
Passwords with excessive repeating characters may be more vulnerable to password-guessing attacks.

STIG	Date
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2015-05-26

Details

Check Text ( C-46255r1_chk )
To check the maximum value for consecutive repeating characters, run the following command: $ grep pam_cracklib /etc/pam.d/system-auth Look for the value of the "maxrepeat" parameter. The DoD requirement is 3. If maxrepeat is not found or not set to the required value, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-43642r2_fix)
The pam_cracklib module's "maxrepeat" parameter controls requirements for consecutive repeating characters. When set to a positive number, it will reject passwords which contain more than that number of consecutive characters. Add "maxrepeat=3" after pam_cracklib.so to prevent a run of (3 + 1) or more identical characters. password required pam_cracklib.so maxrepeat=3