OL 9 must require the maximum number of repeating characters of the same character class be limited to four when passwords are changed.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-271618	SRG-OS-000072-GPOS-00040	OL09-00-001030	SV-271618r1091566_rule	2025-05-08	1

Description
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 determines how long it takes to crack a password. The more complex a password, the greater the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised.

Description

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 determines how long it takes to crack a password. The more complex a password, the greater the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised.

ℹ️ Check
Verify that OL 9 requires the maximum number of repeating characters of the same character class be limited to four when passwords are changed. Verify the value of the "maxclassrepeat" option in "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" with the following command: $ grep maxclassrepeat /etc/security/pwquality.conf /etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/*.conf maxclassrepeat = 4 If the value of "maxclassrepeat" is set to "0", more than "4", or is commented out, this is a finding.

ℹ️ Check

Verify that OL 9 requires the maximum number of repeating characters of the same character class be limited to four when passwords are changed. Verify the value of the "maxclassrepeat" option in "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" with the following command: $ grep maxclassrepeat /etc/security/pwquality.conf /etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/*.conf maxclassrepeat = 4 If the value of "maxclassrepeat" is set to "0", more than "4", or is commented out, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Configure OL 9 to require the change of the number of repeating characters of the same character class when passwords are changed by setting the "maxclassrepeat" option. Add the following line to "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" conf (or modify the line to have the required value): maxclassrepeat = 4