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V-230380

CAT I (High)

RHEL 8 must not allow accounts configured with blank or null passwords.

Rule ID

SV-230380r1069308_rule

STIG

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V2R7

CCIs

CCI-000366

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 Content

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

$ sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -dd 2>&1 | awk '/filename/ {print $4}' | tr -d '\r' | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs sudo grep -iH '^\s*permitemptypasswords'

/etc/ssh/sshd_config:PermitEmptyPasswords no

If "PermitEmptyPasswords" is set to "yes", this is a finding.

If conflicting results are returned, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Edit the following line in "etc/ssh/sshd_config" to prevent logons with empty passwords.

PermitEmptyPasswords no

The SSH daemon must be restarted for the changes to take effect. To restart the SSH daemon, run the following command:

$ sudo systemctl restart sshd.service