Vulnerability 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 of several factors 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.

Check

Note: The value to require a number of numeric characters to be set is expressed as a negative number in "/etc/security/pwquality.conf".

Check the value for "dcredit" in "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" with the following command:

# grep dcredit /etc/security/pwquality.conf
dcredit = -1

If the value of "dcredit" is not set to a negative value, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the operating system to enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one numeric character be used by setting the "dcredit" option.

Add the following line to /etc/security/pwquality.conf (or modify the line to have the required value):

dcredit = -1