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RHEL 9 SSHD must not allow blank passwords.

An XCCDF Rule

Description

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. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000106-GPOS-00053, SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00229, SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227

ID
SV-257984r1045026_rule
Version
RHEL-09-255040
Severity
High
References
Updated

Remediation Templates

A Manual Procedure

To configure the system to prevent SSH users from logging on with blank passwords edit the following line in "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" or in a file in "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d":

PermitEmptyPasswords no

Restart the SSH daemon for the settings to take effect:

$ sudo systemctl restart sshd.service