Title

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that passwords are restricted to a 24 hours/1 day minimum lifetime. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Enforcing a minimum password lifetime helps to prevent repeated password changes to defeat the password reuse or history enforcement requirement. If users are allowed to immediately and continually change their password, the password could be repeatedly changed in a short period of time to defeat the organization's policy regarding password reuse.

Check Content

Check whether the minimum time period between password changes for each user account is one day or greater. # awk -F: '$4 < 1 {print $1 " " $4}' /etc/shadow If any results are returned that are not associated with a system account, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure non-compliant accounts to enforce a 24 hours/1 day minimum password lifetime: # chage -m 1 [user]

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-204419r603261_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-204419

Group Title: SRG-OS-000075-GPOS-00043

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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