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.

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000072-GPOS-00040, SRG-OS-000071-GPOS-00039, SRG-OS-000070-GPOS-00038, SRG-OS-000266-GPOS-00101, SRG-OS-000078-GPOS-00046, SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00225, SRG-OS-000069-GPOS-00037

Check

Verify that RHEL 9 enforces password complexity rules for the root account.

Check if root user is required to use complex passwords with the following command:

$ grep enforce_for_root /etc/security/pwquality.conf /etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/*.conf

/etc/security/pwquality.conf:enforce_for_root

If "enforce_for_root" is commented or missing, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure RHEL 9 to enforce password complexity on the root account.

Add or update the following line in the "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" file or a configuration file in the "/etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/" directory to contain the "enforce_for_root" parameter:

enforce_for_root