Title

User passwords must be changed at least every 60 days. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Limiting the lifespan of authenticators limits the period of time an unauthorized user has access to the system while using compromised credentials and reduces the period of time available for password-guessing attacks to run against a single password.

Check Content

Check the max days field (the 5th field) of /etc/shadow. # cat /etc/shadow If the max days field is equal to 0 or greater than 60 for any account that is not password-locked, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Set the max days field to 60 for all user accounts. # passwd -x 60 <user> Set the MAXWEEKS parameter in /etc/default/passwd to a positive, non-zero value of 8 or less.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID:

Vulnerability ID: V-11976

Group Title:

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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