The Photon operating system must configure Secure Shell (SSH) to disallow authentication with an empty password.
Severity | Group ID | Group Title | Version | Rule ID | Date | STIG Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| high | V-258870 | SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00229 | PHTN-40-000207 | SV-258870r991591_rule | 2024-07-11 | 2 |
Description
Blank passwords are one of the first things an attacker checks for when probing a system. Even if the user somehow has a blank password on the OS, SSH must not allow that user to log in.
ℹ️ Check
At the command line, run the following command to verify the running configuration of sshd:
# sshd -T|&grep -i PermitEmptyPasswords
Example result:
permitemptypasswords no
If "PermitEmptyPasswords" is not set to "no", this is a finding.
✔️ Fix
Navigate to and open:
/etc/ssh/sshd_config
Ensure the "PermitEmptyPasswords" line is uncommented and set to the following:
PermitEmptyPasswords no
At the command line, run the following command:
# systemctl restart sshd.service