Details

Unapproved mechanisms that are used for authentication to the cryptographic module are not verified and therefore cannot be relied upon to provide confidentiality or integrity, and DoD data may be compromised.

Ubuntu operating systems utilizing encryption are required to use FIPS-compliant mechanisms for authenticating to cryptographic modules.

FIPS 140-2 is the current standard for validating that mechanisms used to access cryptographic modules utilize authentication that meets DoD requirements. This allows for Security Levels 1, 2, 3, or 4 for use on a general purpose computing system.

Solution

Configure the Ubuntu operating system to use a FIPS 140-2 approved cryptographic hashing algorithm for system authentication.

Edit/modify the following line in the file ‘/etc/pam.d/common-password’ file to include the sha512 option for pam_unix.so:

password [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so obscure sha512 shadow remember=5

Supportive Information

The following resource is also helpful.

• https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_CAN_Ubuntu_16-04_LTS_V2R3_STIG.zip

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

• 800-53|IA-7
• CAT|II
• CCI|CCI-000803
• Rule-ID|SV-214957r610931_rule
• STIG-ID|UBTU-16-010180
• STIG-Legacy|SV-90145
• STIG-Legacy|V-75465
• Vuln-ID|V-214957

Source

• Tenable.com/audits