Finding ID | Version | Rule ID | IA Controls | Severity |
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V-230368 | RHEL-08-020220 | SV-230368r599732_rule | Medium |
Description |
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Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks. If the information system or application allows the user to reuse their password consecutively when that password has exceeded its defined lifetime, the end result is a password that is not changed per policy requirements. RHEL 8 utilizes "pwquality" consecutively as a mechanism to enforce password complexity. This is set in both: /etc/pam.d/password-auth /etc/pam.d/system-auth. Note that manual changes to the listed files may be overwritten by the "authselect" program. |
STIG | Date |
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Security Technical Implementation Guide | 2020-11-25 |
Check Text ( C-33037r567850_chk ) |
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Verify the operating system prohibits password reuse for a minimum of five generations. Check for the value of the "remember" argument in "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" and "/etc/pam.d/password-auth" with the following command: $ sudo grep -i remember /etc/pam.d/system-auth /etc/pam.d/password-auth password required pam_pwhistory.so use_authtok remember=5 retry=3 If the line containing "pam_pwhistory.so" does not have the "remember" module argument set, is commented out, or the value of the "remember" module argument is set to less than "5", this is a finding. |
Fix Text (F-33012r567851_fix) |
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Configure the operating system to prohibit password reuse for a minimum of five generations. Add the following line in "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" and "/etc/pam.d/password-auth" (or modify the line to have the required value): password required pam_pwhistory.so use_authtok remember=5 retry=3 |