The system must prevent the use of dictionary words for passwords.

From SOLARIS 10 X86 SECURITY TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE

Associated with IA controls: IAIA-2, IAIA-1

Associated with: CCI-000189

SV-26345r1_rule The system must prevent the use of dictionary words for passwords.

Vulnerability discussion

An easily guessable password provides an open door to any external or internal malicious intruder. Many computer compromises occur as the result of account name and password guessing. This is generally done by someone with an automated script using repeated logon attempts until the correct account and password pair is guessed. Utilities, such as cracklib, can be used to validate passwords are not dictionary words and meet other criteria during password changes.

Check content

Check /etc/default/passwd for dictionary check configuration. # grep DICTION /etc/default/passwd If the DICTIONLIST or DICTIONDBDIR settings are not present, or are set to non-existent files or directories, this is a finding.

Fix text

Edit /etc/default/passwd; add or set DICTIONLIST to the dictionary file and DICTIONDBDIR to a database directory such as /var/passwd. Generate the password dictionary by running the mkpwdict command.

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