The SUSE operating system must require the change of at least eight (8) of the total number of characters when passwords are changed.
An XCCDF Rule
Description
<VulnDiscussion>If the SUSE operating system allows the user to consecutively reuse extensive portions of passwords, this increases the chances of password compromise by increasing the window of opportunity for attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks. The number of changed characters refers to the number of changes required with respect to the total number of positions in the current password. In other words, characters may be the same within the two passwords; however, the positions of the like characters must be different.</VulnDiscussion><FalsePositives></FalsePositives><FalseNegatives></FalseNegatives><Documentable>false</Documentable><Mitigations></Mitigations><SeverityOverrideGuidance></SeverityOverrideGuidance><PotentialImpacts></PotentialImpacts><ThirdPartyTools></ThirdPartyTools><MitigationControl></MitigationControl><Responsibility></Responsibility><IAControls></IAControls>
- ID
- SV-217121r1015210_rule
- Severity
- Medium
- References
- Updated
Remediation - Manual Procedure
Configure the SUSE operating system to require at least eight characters be changed between the old and new passwords during a password change with the following command:
Edit "/etc/pam.d/common-password" and edit the line containing "pam_cracklib.so" to contain the option "difok=8" after the third column.