Detections
Analytics

1.90 SLES-15-020160

Information

The SUSE operating system must require the change of at least eight of the total number of characters when passwords are changed.

GROUP ID: V-234885
RULE ID: SV-234885r1009624

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.

Solution

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.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/23779

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(1), CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000195, CCI|CCI-004066, Rule-ID|SV-234885r1009624_rule, STIG-ID|SLES-15-020160, Vuln-ID|V-234885

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 7b4fb45c5076de2d24dbdc65597c547212f8fcec62c39ec8131ca01906ca3a9f