Operating systems must enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one numeric character be used.

From Apple OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) Workstation Security Technical Implementation Guide

Part of SRG-OS-000071

Associated with: CCI-000194

SV-74097r2_rule Operating systems must enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one numeric character be used.

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 determine 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.

Check content

Password policy can be set with a configuration profile or the pwpolicy utility. If password policy is set with a configuration profile, run the following command to check if the system is configured to require that passwords contain at least one numeric character: system_profiler SPConfigurationProfileDataType | grep requireAlphanumeric If 'requireAlphanumeric' is not set to '1' or is undefined, this is a finding. If password policy is set with the pwpolicy utility, run the following command instead: sudo pwpolicy getaccountpolicies Look for the line policyCategoryPasswordContent. If it does not exist, and password policy is not controlled by a directory server, this is a finding. Otherwise, in the array section that follows it, there should be a section that contains a check that 'matches' the variable 'policyAttributePassword' to the regular expression '(.*[0-9].*){1,}+' or to a similar expression that will ensure the password contains a character in the range 0-9 one or more times. If this check allows users to create passwords without at least one numeric character, or if no such check exists, this is a finding.

Fix text

This setting may be enforced using the "Passcode Policy" configuration profile or by a directory server. To set the password policy without a configuration profile, run the following command to save a copy of the current pwpolicy account policy file: sudo pwpolicy getaccountpolicies | tail -n +2 > pwpolicy.plist Open the generated file in a text editor. If the file does not yet contain any policy settings, replace with . Then, insert the following text after the opening tag and before the closing tag. The same text can also be used if the line policyCategoryPasswordContent is not present. policyCategoryPasswordContent policyContent policyAttributePassword matches '(.*[0-9].*){1,}+' policyIdentifier com.apple.policy.legacy.requiresNumeric policyParameters minimumNumericCharacters 1 If the file does contain policy settings, and the line policyCategoryPasswordContent does exist, insert the following text after the opening tag that comes right after it: policyContent policyAttributePassword matches '(.*[0-9].*){1,}+' policyIdentifier com.apple.policy.legacy.requiresNumeric policyParameters minimumNumericCharacters 1 After saving the file and exiting to the command prompt, run the following command to load the new policy file: sudo pwpolicy setaccountpolicies pwpolicy.plist NOTE: Updates to password restrictions must be thoroughly evaluated in a test environment. Mistakes in configuration may block password change and local user creation operations, as well as, lock out all local users, including administrators.

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