SLES 12 STIG Version Comparison

There are 5 differences between versions v2 r13 (Jan. 24, 2024) (the "left" version) and v3 r2 (Jan. 30, 2025) (the "right" version).

Check SLES-12-010300 was removed from the benchmark in the "right" version. The text below reflects the old wording.

This check's original form is available here.

Title

The SUSE operating system must employ a password history file.

Check Content

Verify the password history file exists on the SUSE operating system. Check that the password history file exists with the following command: # ls -al /etc/security/opasswd -rw------- 1 root root 7 Dec 13 17:21 /etc/security/opasswd If "/etc/security/opasswd" does not exist, this is a finding.

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.

Fix

Configure the SUSE operating system to create the password history file with the following commands: # sudo touch /etc/security/opasswd # sudo chown root:root /etc/security/opasswd # sudo chmod 0600 /etc/security/opasswd