The TOSS 5 pam_unix.so module must be configured in the password-auth file to use a FIPS 140-3-approved cryptographic hashing algorithm for system authentication.

Unapproved mechanisms that are used for authentication to the cryptographic module are not verified and; therefore, cannot be relied upon to provide confidentiality or integrity, and DoW data may be compromised.

TOSS 5 systems using encryption are required to use FIPS-compliant mechanisms for authenticating to cryptographic modules.

FIPS 140-3 is the current standard for validating that mechanisms used to access cryptographic modules use authentication that meets DoW requirements. This allows for Security Levels 1, 2, 3, or 4 for use on a general-purpose computing system.

Verify the pam_unix.so module is configured to use sha512 in /etc/pam.d/password-auth using the following command:

$ grep "^password.*pam_unix.so.*sha512" /etc/pam.d/password-auth

password sufficient pam_unix.so sha512

If "sha512" is missing, or the line is commented out, this is a finding.

Configure TOSS 5 to use a FIPS 140-3-approved cryptographic hashing algorithm for system authentication.

Edit or modify the following line in the "/etc/pam.d/password-auth" file to include the sha512 option for pam_unix.so:

password sufficient pam_unix.so sha512