TOSS 5 must enforce password complexity by requiring at least one special character.
Overview
| Finding ID | Version | Rule ID | IA Controls | Severity |
| V-282544 | TOSS-05-000346 | SV-282544r1200612_rule | CCI-004066 | medium |
| Description | ||||
| Using 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 must be tested before the password is compromised. TOSS 5 uses "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". | ||||
| STIG | Date | |||
| Tri-Lab Operating System Stack (TOSS) 5 Security Technical Implementation Guide | 2026-04-01 | |||
Details
Check Text (C-282544r1200612_chk)
Verify TOSS 5 enforces password complexity by requiring at least one special character using the following command:
$ sudo grep ocredit /etc/security/pwquality.conf /etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/*.conf
ocredit = -1
If the value of "ocredit" is a positive number or is commented out, this is a finding.
Fix Text (F-87010r1200611_fix)
Configure TOSS 5 to enforce password complexity by requiring 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