Ensure There Are No Accounts With Blank or Null Passwords
An XCCDF Rule
Description
Check the "/etc/shadow" file for blank passwords with the following command:
$ sudo awk -F: '!$2 {print $1}' /etc/shadow
If the command returns any results, this is a finding.
Configure all accounts on the system to have a password or lock
the account with the following commands:
Perform a password reset:
$ sudo passwd [username]Lock an account:
$ sudo passwd -l [username]
warning alert: Warning
Note that this rule is not applicable for systems running within a container. Having user with empty password within a container is not considered a risk, because it should not be possible to directly login into a container anyway.
Rationale
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.
- ID
- xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_rule_no_empty_passwords_etc_shadow
- Severity
- High
- Updated
Remediation - Ansible
- name: Collect users with no password
command: |
awk -F: '!$2 {print $1}' /etc/shadow
register: users_nopasswd
when: ansible_virtualization_type not in ["docker", "lxc", "openvz", "podman", "container"]
tags:
Remediation - Shell Script
# Remediation is applicable only in certain platforms
if [ ! -f /.dockerenv ] && [ ! -f /run/.containerenv ]; then
readarray -t users_with_empty_pass < <(sudo awk -F: '!$2 {print $1}' /etc/shadow)
for user_with_empty_pass in "${users_with_empty_pass[@]}"