Skip to content

Limit Password Reuse

An XCCDF Rule

Description

Do not allow users to reuse recent passwords. This can be accomplished by using the remember option for the pam_unix or pam_pwhistory PAM modules.

warning alert: Warning

If the system relies on authselect tool to manage PAM settings, the remediation will also use authselect tool. However, if any manual modification was made in PAM files, the authselect integrity check will fail and the remediation will be aborted in order to preserve intentional changes. In this case, an informative message will be shown in the remediation report.

warning alert: Warning

Newer versions of authselect contain an authselect feature to easily and properly enable pam_pwhistory.so module. If this feature is not yet available in your system, an authselect custom profile must be used to avoid integrity issues in PAM files.

Rationale

Preventing re-use of previous passwords helps ensure that a compromised password is not re-used by a user.

ID
xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_rule_accounts_password_pam_unix_remember
Severity
Medium
References
Updated



Remediation - Ansible

- name: Gather the package facts
  package_facts:
    manager: auto
  tags:
  - CCE-92217-9
  - CJIS-5.6.2.1.1

Remediation - Shell Script

# Remediation is applicable only in certain platforms
if rpm --quiet -q pam; then

var_password_pam_unix_remember='<xccdf-1.2:sub xmlns:xccdf-1.2="http://checklists.nist.gov/xccdf/1.2" idref="xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_value_var_password_pam_unix_remember" use="legacy"/>'