Title

The SUSE operating system must not allow passwords to be reused 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 end result is a password that is not changed as per policy requirements.

Check Content

Verify the SUSE operating system prohibits the reuse of a password for a minimum of five generations. Check that the SUSE operating system prohibits the reuse of a password for a minimum of five generations with the following command: > grep pam_pwhistory.so /etc/pam.d/common-password password requisite pam_pwhistory.so remember=5 use_authtok If the command does not return a result, or the returned line is commented out, has a second column value different from "requisite", does not contain "remember" value, the value is less than "5", or is missing the "use_authtok" keyword, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure the SUSE operating system password history to prohibit the reuse of a password for a minimum of five generations. Edit "/etc/pam.d/common-password" and edit the line containing "pam_pwhistory.so" to contain the option "remember=5 use_authtok" after the third column.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-234894r622137_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-234894

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

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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