STIGUI
V-251721CAT I — High severitySV-251721r991589_rule

The SUSE operating system must not have accounts configured with blank or null passwords.

Rule version SLES-12-010221 · STIG v3 · 2025-11-24

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 an account: $ sudo passwd -l [username]

Identifiers

Group ID
V-251721
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-251721r991589_rule
Check ID
C-55158r809451_chk
Fix ID
F-55112r809452_fix