Title

SLEM 5 must employ a password history file. (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 end result is a password that is not changed as per policy requirements.

Check Content

Verify the password history file exists on SLEM 5 with the following command: > ls -al /etc/security/opasswd -rw------- 1 root root 82 Dec 7 19:41 /etc/security/opasswd If the "/etc/security/opasswd" file does not exist, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure SLEM 5 to create the password history file with the following commands: Create the file: > sudo touch /etc/security/opasswd Set ownership permissions: > sudo chown root:root /etc/security/opasswd Set access permissions: > sudo chmod 0600 /etc/security/opasswd

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-261390r996595_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-261390

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.