V-268145

Discussion

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 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 those characters that are not alphanumeric. Examples include: ~ ! @ # $ % ^ *.

Check Content

Verify NixOS enforces the use of at least one special character in passwords with the following command:

$ grep minlen /etc/security/pwquality.conf

 ocredit=-1

If the value of "ocredit" is a positive number or is commented out, this is a finding.