Ensure PAM Enforces Password Requirements - Minimum Lowercase Characters

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Description

The pam_pwquality module’s lcredit parameter controls requirements for usage of lowercase letters in a password. When set to a negative number, any password will be required to contain that many lowercase characters. When set to a positive number, pam_pwquality will grant +1 additional length credit for each lowercase character. Modify the lcredit setting in /etc/security/pwquality.conf to require the use of a lowercase character in passwords.

Rationale

Use of a complex password helps to increase the time and resources required to compromise the password. Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks.

Password complexity is one factor of several that determines how long it takes to crack a password. The more complex the password, the greater the number of possble combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised. Requiring a minimum number of lowercase characters makes password guessing attacks more difficult by ensuring a larger search space.

Remediation

Shell script

The following script can be run on the host to remediate the issue.

#!/bin/bash

# Remediation is applicable only in certain platforms
if dpkg-query --show --showformat='${db:Status-Status}\n' 'libpam-runtime' 2>/dev/null | grep -q installed; then

var_password_pam_lcredit='-1'






# Strip any search characters in the key arg so that the key can be replaced without
# adding any search characters to the config file.
stripped_key=$(sed 's/[\^=\$,;+]*//g' <<< "^lcredit")

# shellcheck disable=SC2059
printf -v formatted_output "%s = %s" "$stripped_key" "$var_password_pam_lcredit"

# If the key exists, change it. Otherwise, add it to the config_file.
# We search for the key string followed by a word boundary (matched by \>),
# so if we search for 'setting', 'setting2' won't match.
if LC_ALL=C grep -q -m 1 -i -e "^lcredit\\>" "/etc/security/pwquality.conf"; then
    escaped_formatted_output=$(sed -e 's|/|\\/|g' <<< "$formatted_output")
    LC_ALL=C sed -i --follow-symlinks "s/^lcredit\\>.*/$escaped_formatted_output/gi" "/etc/security/pwquality.conf"
else
    if [[ -s "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" ]] && [[ -n "$(tail -c 1 -- "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" || true)" ]]; then
        LC_ALL=C sed -i --follow-symlinks '$a'\\ "/etc/security/pwquality.conf"
    fi
    printf '%s\n' "$formatted_output" >> "/etc/security/pwquality.conf"
fi

else
    >&2 echo 'Remediation is not applicable, nothing was done'
fi

Ansible playbook

The following playbook can be run with Ansible to remediate the issue.

- name: Gather the package facts
  package_facts:
    manager: auto
  tags:
  - DISA-STIG-UBTU-20-010051
  - NIST-800-53-CM-6(a)
  - NIST-800-53-IA-5(1)(a)
  - NIST-800-53-IA-5(4)
  - NIST-800-53-IA-5(c)
  - PCI-DSS-Req-8.2.3
  - PCI-DSSv4-8.3
  - PCI-DSSv4-8.3.6
  - accounts_password_pam_lcredit
  - low_complexity
  - low_disruption
  - medium_severity
  - no_reboot_needed
  - restrict_strategy
- name: XCCDF Value var_password_pam_lcredit # promote to variable
  set_fact:
    var_password_pam_lcredit: !!str -1
  tags:
    - always

- name: Ensure PAM Enforces Password Requirements - Minimum Lowercase Characters -
    Ensure PAM variable lcredit is set accordingly
  ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
    create: true
    dest: /etc/security/pwquality.conf
    regexp: ^#?\s*lcredit
    line: lcredit = {{ var_password_pam_lcredit }}
  when: '"libpam-runtime" in ansible_facts.packages'
  tags:
  - DISA-STIG-UBTU-20-010051
  - NIST-800-53-CM-6(a)
  - NIST-800-53-IA-5(1)(a)
  - NIST-800-53-IA-5(4)
  - NIST-800-53-IA-5(c)
  - PCI-DSS-Req-8.2.3
  - PCI-DSSv4-8.3
  - PCI-DSSv4-8.3.6
  - accounts_password_pam_lcredit
  - low_complexity
  - low_disruption
  - medium_severity
  - no_reboot_needed
  - restrict_strategy