Ensure PAM Enforces Password Requirements - Authentication Retry Prompts Permitted Per-Session

An XCCDF Rule

Description

To configure the number of retry prompts that are permitted per-session: Edit the pam_pwquality.so statement in /etc/pam.d/common-password to show

retry=

, or a lower value if site policy is more restrictive. The DoD requirement is a maximum of 3 prompts per session.

Rationale

Setting the password retry prompts that are permitted on a per-session basis to a low value requires some software, such as SSH, to re-connect. This can slow down and draw additional attention to some types of password-guessing attacks. Note that this is different from account lockout, which is provided by the pam_faillock module.

ID: xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_rule_accounts_password_pam_retry
Severity: Medium
References: 1 11 12 15 16 3 5 9

5.5.3

BAI10.01 BAI10.02 BAI10.03 BAI10.05 DSS05.04 DSS05.05 DSS05.07 DSS05.10 DSS06.03 DSS06.10

4.3.3.2.2 4.3.3.5.1 4.3.3.5.2 4.3.3.6.1 4.3.3.6.2 4.3.3.6.3 4.3.3.6.4 4.3.3.6.5 4.3.3.6.6 4.3.3.6.7 4.3.3.6.8 4.3.3.6.9 4.3.3.7.2 4.3.3.7.4 4.3.4.3.2 4.3.4.3.3

SR 1.1 SR 1.10 SR 1.2 SR 1.3 SR 1.4 SR 1.5 SR 1.7 SR 1.8 SR 1.9 SR 2.1 SR 7.6

A.12.1.2 A.12.5.1 A.12.6.2 A.14.2.2 A.14.2.3 A.14.2.4 A.18.1.4 A.7.1.1 A.9.2.1 A.9.2.2 A.9.2.3 A.9.2.4 A.9.2.6 A.9.3.1 A.9.4.2 A.9.4.3

AC-7(a) CM-6(a) IA-5(4)

PR.AC-1 PR.AC-6 PR.AC-7 PR.IP-1

SRG-OS-000069-GPOS-00037 SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227

UBTU-20-010057

5.3.1

SV-238228r653859_rule

CCI-004066

R68
Updated: about 1 month ago

Remediation Templates

# Remediation is applicable only in certain platforms
if dpkg-query --show --showformat='${db:Status-Status}\n' 'libpam-runtime' 2>/dev/null | grep -q installed; then
var_password_pam_retry='<xccdf-1.2:sub xmlns:xccdf-1.2="http://checklists.nist.gov/xccdf/1.2" idref="xccdf_org.ssgproject.content_value_var_password_pam_retry" use="legacy"/>'


if [ -e "/etc/pam.d/common-password" ] ; then    valueRegex="$var_password_pam_retry" defaultValue="$var_password_pam_retry"
    # non-empty values need to be preceded by an equals sign
    [ -n "${valueRegex}" ] && valueRegex="=${valueRegex}"
    # add an equals sign to non-empty values
    [ -n "${defaultValue}" ] && defaultValue="=${defaultValue}"

    # fix 'type' if it's wrong
    if grep -q -P "^\\s*(?"'!'"password\\s)[[:alnum:]]+\\s+[[:alnum:]]+\\s+pam_pwquality.so" < "/etc/pam.d/common-password" ; then
        sed --follow-symlinks -i -E -e "s/^(\\s*)[[:alnum:]]+(\\s+[[:alnum:]]+\\s+pam_pwquality.so)/\\1password\\2/" "/etc/pam.d/common-password"
    fi

    # fix 'control' if it's wrong
    if grep -q -P "^\\s*password\\s+(?"'!'"requisite)[[:alnum:]]+\\s+pam_pwquality.so" < "/etc/pam.d/common-password" ; then
        sed --follow-symlinks -i -E -e "s/^(\\s*password\\s+)[[:alnum:]]+(\\s+pam_pwquality.so)/\\1requisite\\2/" "/etc/pam.d/common-password"
    fi

    # fix the value for 'option' if one exists but does not match 'valueRegex'
    if grep -q -P "^\\s*password\\s+requisite\\s+pam_pwquality.so(\\s.+)?\\s+retry(?"'!'"${valueRegex}(\\s|\$))" < "/etc/pam.d/common-password" ; then
        sed --follow-symlinks -i -E -e "s/^(\\s*password\\s+requisite\\s+pam_pwquality.so(\\s.+)?\\s)retry=[^[:space:]]*/\\1retry${defaultValue}/" "/etc/pam.d/common-password"

    # add 'option=default' if option is not set
    elif grep -q -E "^\\s*password\\s+requisite\\s+pam_pwquality.so" < "/etc/pam.d/common-password" &&
            grep    -E "^\\s*password\\s+requisite\\s+pam_pwquality.so" < "/etc/pam.d/common-password" | grep -q -E -v "\\sretry(=|\\s|\$)" ; then

        sed --follow-symlinks -i -E -e "s/^(\\s*password\\s+requisite\\s+pam_pwquality.so[^\\n]*)/\\1 retry${defaultValue}/" "/etc/pam.d/common-password"
    # add a new entry if none exists
    elif ! grep -q -P "^\\s*password\\s+requisite\\s+pam_pwquality.so(\\s.+)?\\s+retry${valueRegex}(\\s|\$)" < "/etc/pam.d/common-password" ; then
        echo "password requisite pam_pwquality.so retry${defaultValue}" >> "/etc/pam.d/common-password"
    fi
else
    echo "/etc/pam.d/common-password doesn't exist" >&2
fi

else
    >&2 echo 'Remediation is not applicable, nothing was done'
fi

Ensure PAM Enforces Password Requirements - Authentication Retry Prompts Permitted Per-Session

Description

Rationale

Remediation Templates

A Shell Script