STIGUI
V-282737CAT I — High severitySV-282737r1201191_rule

TOSS 5 must not allow blank or null passwords.

Rule version TOSS-05-000331 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-20

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 null passwords cannot be used by running the following command:

$ sudo grep -i nullok /etc/pam.d/system-auth /etc/pam.d/password-auth

If an output is produced, this is a finding.

Fix

Remove any instances of the "nullok" option in the "/etc/pam.d/password-auth" and "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" files to prevent logons with empty passwords.

Note: Manual changes to the listed file may be overwritten by the "authselect" program.

Identifiers

Group ID
V-282737
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227
Rule ID
SV-282737r1201191_rule
Check ID
C-87298r1201189_chk
Fix ID
F-87203r1201190_fix