Title

The macOS system must prohibit password reuse for a minimum of five generations. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

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 result is a password that is not changed as per policy requirements.

Check Content

Verify the macOS system is configured to prohibit password reuse for a minimum of five generations with the following command: /usr/sbin/system_profiler SPConfigurationProfileDataType | /usr/bin/grep "pinHistory" pinHistory = 5; If "pinHistory" is not set to "5" or greater, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure the macOS system to prohibit password reuse for five generations by installing the "Passcode Policy" configuration profile.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-257228r905317_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-257228

Group Title: SRG-OS-000077-GPOS-00045

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.