STIGUI
V-271634CAT I — High severitySV-271634r1091614_rule

OL 9 must not allow blank or null passwords.

Rule version OL09-00-001110 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-21

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 OL 9 does not allow null passwords with the following command:

$ grep -i nullok /etc/pam.d/system-auth /etc/pam.d/password-auth

If output is produced, this is a finding.

Fix

Remove any instances of the "nullok" option in the "/etc/pam.d/password-auth" and "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" files to prevent logons with empty passwords.

Note: Manual changes to the listed file may be overwritten by the "authselect" program.

Identifiers

Group ID
V-271634
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-271634r1091614_rule
Check ID
C-75684r1091612_chk
Fix ID
F-75591r1091613_fix