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V-258870

CAT I (High)

The Photon operating system must configure Secure Shell (SSH) to disallow authentication with an empty password.

Rule ID

SV-258870r933671_rule

STIG

VMware vSphere 8.0 vCenter Appliance Photon OS 4.0 Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V1R1

CCIs

CCI-000366

Discussion

Blank passwords are one of the first things an attacker checks for when probing a system. Even if the user somehow has a blank password on the OS, SSH must not allow that user to log in.

Check Content

At the command line, run the following command to verify the running configuration of sshd:

# sshd -T|&grep -i PermitEmptyPasswords

Example result:

permitemptypasswords no

If "PermitEmptyPasswords" is not set to "no", this is a finding.

Fix Text

Navigate to and open:

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

Ensure the "PermitEmptyPasswords" line is uncommented and set to the following:

PermitEmptyPasswords no

At the command line, run the following command:

# systemctl restart sshd.service