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V-281200

CAT II (Medium)

RHEL 10 must not allow blank or null passwords.

Rule ID

SV-281200r1166552_rule

STIG

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V1R1

CCIs

CCI-004066

Discussion

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

Check Content

Verify RHEL 10 prohibits the use of null passwords with the following command:

$ sudo grep -i nullok /etc/pam.d/system-auth /etc/pam.d/password-auth

If output is produced, this is a finding.

If the system administrator (SA) can demonstrate that the required configuration is contained in a PAM configuration file included or substacked from the "system-auth" file, this is not a finding.

Fix Text

Configure RHEL 10 to prohibit the use of null passwords.

If PAM is managed with "authselect", use the following command to remove instances of "nullok":

$ sudo authselect enable-feature without-nullok

Otherwise, remove any instances of the "nullok" option in the "/etc/pam.d/password-auth" and "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" files to prevent logins with empty passwords.

Note: Manual changes to the listed file may be overwritten by the "authselect" program.