The software described in this documentation is either in Extended Support or Sustaining Support. See https://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/enterprise-linux-support-policies-069172.pdf for more information.
Oracle recommends that you upgrade the software described by this documentation as soon as possible.
By default, an Oracle Linux system is configured to use password
hashes that are stored in the /etc/shadow
file rather than in the world-readable
/etc/passwd file. If shadow passwords were
not used, an attacker is much more likely to be able to discover
a password by applying cracking software to the hashes.
Similarly, using a password-hashing algorithm that is weaker
than SHA-512 would make it much easier to find likely candidates
that match a hash value.