STIGUI
V-271638CAT II — Medium severitySV-271638r1091626_rule

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

Rule version OL09-00-001130 · 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 have accounts configured with blank or null passwords with the following command:

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

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

Fix

Configure OL 9 so that all accounts have a password or lock the account with the following commands:

Perform a password reset:

$ sudo passwd [username] 

To lock an account:

$ sudo passwd -l [username]

Identifiers

Group ID
V-271638
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-271638r1091626_rule
Check ID
C-75688r1091624_chk
Fix ID
F-75595r1091625_fix