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  4. RHEL-07-010220 – The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that user and group account administration utilities are configured to store only encrypted representations of passwords.
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RHEL-07-010220 – The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that user and group account administration utilities are configured to store only encrypted representations of passwords.

Details

Passwords need to be protected at all times, and encryption is the standard method for protecting passwords. If passwords are not encrypted, they can be plainly read (i.e., clear text) and easily compromised. Passwords encrypted with a weak algorithm are no more protected than if they are kept in plain text.

Solution

Configure the operating system to store only SHA512 encrypted representations of passwords.

Add or update the following line in ‘/etc/libuser.conf’ in the [defaults] section:

crypt_style = sha512

Supportive Information

The following resource is also helpful.

This security hardening control applies to the following category of controls within NIST 800-53: Identification and Authentication.This control applies to the following type of system Unix.

References

Source

Updated on July 16, 2022
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