Catalina - Set Minimum Password Lifetime to 24 Hours

Information

The macOS _MUST_ be configured to enforce a minimum password lifetime limit of 24 hours.

This rule discourages users from cycling through their previous passwords to get back to a preferred one.

NOTE: The guidance for password based authentication in NIST 800-53 (Rev 5) and NIST 800-63B state that complexity rules should be organizationally defined. The values defined are based off of common complexity values. But your organization may define its own password complexity rules.

Solution

This setting may be enforced using local policy or by a directory service.

To set local policy to require a minimum password lifetime, edit the current password policy to contain the following <dict> within the "policyCategoryPasswordContent":

[source,xml]
----
<dict>
<key>policyContent</key>
<string>policyAttributeLastPasswordChangeTime &lt; policyAttributeCurrentTime - (policyAttributeMinimumLifetimeHours * 60 * 60)</string>
<key>policyIdentifier</key>
<string>Minimum Password Lifetime</string>
<key>policyParameters</key>
<dict>
<key>policyAttributeMinimumLifetimeHours</key>
<integer>24</integer>
</dict>
</dict>
----
After saving the file and exiting to the command prompt, run the following command to load the new policy file, substituting the path to the file in place of "$pwpolicy_file".

[source,bash]
----
/usr/bin/pwpolicy setaccountpolicies $pwpolicy_file
----
NOTE: See the password policy supplemental on more information on how to implement password policies on macOS.

See Also

https://github.com/usnistgov/macos_security

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5, 800-53|IA-5(1), CCE|CCE-84817-6

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 9d8b32fa28541407ea4b43d4a1791521e009178761b81ec1a363f29ec85a7acb