STIGUI
V-261387CAT I — High severitySV-261387r996588_rule

SLEM 5 must not have accounts configured with blank or null passwords.

Rule version SLEM-05-611060 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-20

Discussion

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

Check

Check the "/etc/shadow" file for blank 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 all accounts on the system to have a password or lock the account with the following commands:

Perform a password reset: > sudo passwd <username>

Lock the account: > sudo passwd -l <username>

Identifiers

Group ID
V-261387
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-261387r996588_rule
Check ID
C-65116r996026_chk
Fix ID
F-65024r996027_fix