The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that when passwords are changed or new passwords are established, the new password must contain at least one lower-case character.

STIG ID: RHEL-07-010130  |  SRG: SRG-OS-000070-GPOS-00038 |  Severity: medium |  CCI: CCI-000193 |  Vulnerability Id: V-204408 | 

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 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 need to be tested before the password is compromised.

Check

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

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

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

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

Fix

Configure the system to require at least one lower-case character when creating or changing a password.

Add or modify the following line
in "/etc/security/pwquality.conf":

lcredit = -1
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