RHEL 8 must enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one lower-case character be used.
Overview
| Finding ID | Version | Rule ID | IA Controls | Severity |
| V-230358 | RHEL-08-020120 | SV-230358r1017170_rule | CCI-000193 | medium |
| 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. RHEL 8 utilizes pwquality as a mechanism to enforce password complexity. Note that in order to require lower-case characters without degrading the "minlen" value, the credit value must be expressed as a negative number in "/etc/security/pwquality.conf". | ||||
| STIG | Date | |||
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Security Technical Implementation Guide | 2025-05-14 | |||
Details
Check Text (C-230358r1017170_chk)
Verify the value for "lcredit" with the following command:
$ sudo grep -r lcredit /etc/security/pwquality.conf*
/etc/security/pwquality.conf:lcredit = -1
If the value of "lcredit" is a positive number or is commented out, this is a finding.
If conflicting results are returned, this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-33002r858772_fix)
Configure the operating system to enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one lower-case character be used by setting the "lcredit" option.
Add the following line to /etc/security/pwquality.conf (or modify the line to have the required value):
lcredit = -1
Remove any configurations that conflict with the above value.