Vulnerability Discussion

If an account has an empty password, anyone could log on and run commands with the privileges of that account. Accounts with empty passwords should never be used in operational environments.

Check

To verify that null passwords cannot be used, run the following command:

# grep nullok /etc/pam.d/system-auth /etc/pam.d/password-auth

If this produces any output, it may be possible to log on with accounts with empty passwords.

If null passwords can be used, this is a finding.

Fix

If an account is configured for password authentication but does not have an assigned password, it may be possible to log on to the account without authenticating.

Remove any instances of the "nullok" option in "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" and "/etc/pam.d/password-auth" to prevent logons with empty passwords.

Note: Per requirement RHEL-07-010199, RHEL 7 must be configured to not overwrite custom authentication configuration settings while using the authconfig utility, otherwise manual changes to the listed files will be overwritten whenever the authconfig utility is used.