V-261380

Discussion

Use of a complex password helps 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 in determining 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. Special characters are not alphanumeric. Examples include: ~ ! @ # $ % ^ *.

Check Content

Verify SLEM 5 enforces password complexity by requiring at least one special character with the following command:

     > grep pam_cracklib.so /etc/pam.d/common-password
     password requisite pam_cracklib.so ocredit=-1

If the value for "ocredit" is not "-1", if "ucredit" is missing from the line, the second column value different from "requisite", the line is commented out, or the line is missing, this is a finding.