STIGUI
V-269219CAT II — Medium severitySV-269219r1050101_rule

AlmaLinux OS 9 must not have accounts configured with blank or null passwords.

Rule version ALMA-09-015860 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-25

Discussion

If an account has an empty password, anyone could log in and run commands with the privileges of that account. Accounts with empty passwords should never be used in operational environments.

Check

Verify that null or blank passwords cannot be used with the following command:

$ awk -F: '!$2 {print $1}' /etc/shadow

If the command returns any results, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure all accounts on AlmaLinux OS 9 to have a password or lock the account with the following commands:

Perform a password reset:

$ passwd [username] 

To lock an account:

$ passwd -l [username]

Identifiers

Group ID
V-269219
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-269219r1050101_rule
Check ID
C-73250r1048033_chk
Fix ID
F-73151r1049332_fix