STIGUI
V-268127CAT II — Medium severitySV-268127r1131059_rule

NixOS must enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one lowercase character be used.

Rule version ANIX-00-000740 · STIG v1 · 2025-08-19

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.

Check

Verify NixOS enforces password complexity by requiring at least one lowercase character with the following command:

$ grep lcredit /etc/security/pwquality.conf

lcredit=-1

If the value of "lcredit" is a positive number or is commented out, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure NixOS to enforce password complexity.

Add the following Nix code to the NixOS Configuration, usually located in /etc/nixos/configuration.nix or /etc/nixos/flake.nix:

environment.etc."/security/pwquality.conf".text = '' lcredit=-1 '';

Rebuild and switch to the new NixOS configuration: $ sudo nixos-rebuild switch

Identifiers

Group ID
V-268127
Group title
SRG-OS-000070-GPOS-00038
Rule ID
SV-268127r1131059_rule
Check ID
C-72051r1039267_chk
Fix ID
F-71954r1131058_fix