RHEL 9 must ensure the password complexity module is enabled in the system-auth file.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-258098	SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227	RHEL-09-611045	SV-258098r1045195_rule	2025-02-27	2

Description
Enabling PAM password complexity permits enforcement of strong passwords and consequently makes the system less prone to dictionary attacks.

ℹ️ Check
Verify RHEL 9 uses "pwquality" to enforce the password complexity rules in the system-auth file with the following command: $ grep pam_pwquality /etc/pam.d/system-auth password required pam_pwquality.so If the command does not return a line containing the value "pam_pwquality.so", or the line is commented out, this is a finding. If the system administrator (SA) can demonstrate that the required configuration is contained in a PAM configuration file included or substacked from the system-auth file, this is not a finding.

ℹ️ Check

Verify RHEL 9 uses "pwquality" to enforce the password complexity rules in the system-auth file with the following command: $ grep pam_pwquality /etc/pam.d/system-auth password required pam_pwquality.so If the command does not return a line containing the value "pam_pwquality.so", or the line is commented out, this is a finding. If the system administrator (SA) can demonstrate that the required configuration is contained in a PAM configuration file included or substacked from the system-auth file, this is not a finding.

✔️ Fix
Configure RHEL 9 to use "pwquality" to enforce password complexity rules. Add the following line to the "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" file(or modify the line to have the required value): password required pam_pwquality.so