Rule ID
SV-204422r982201_rule
Version
V3R15
CCIs
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 consecutively reuse their password when that password has exceeded its defined lifetime, the end result is a password that is not changed per policy requirements.
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:
# grep -i remember /etc/pam.d/system-auth /etc/pam.d/password-auth
password requisite pam_pwhistory.so use_authtok remember=5 retry=3
If the line containing the "pam_pwhistory.so" line 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.Configure the operating system to prohibit password reuse for a minimum of five generations. Add the following line in "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" (or modify the line to have the required value): password requisite pam_pwhistory.so remember=5 retry=3 Add the following line in "/etc/pam.d/password-auth" (or modify the line to have the required value): password requisite pam_pwhistory.so use_authtok remember=5 retry=3 Note: Per requirement RHEL-07-010199, RHEL 7 must be configured to not overwrite custom authentication configuration settings while using the authconfig utility; otherwise, manual changes to the listed files will be overwritten whenever the authconfig utility is used.