TMA-COS-5.2.2
Ensure password reuse is limited
Description
The /etc/security/opasswd file stores the users' old passwords and can be checked to ensure that users are not recycling recent passwords. Forcing users not to reuse their past 5 passwords make it less likely that an attacker will be able to guess the password. Note that these change only apply to accounts configured on the local system.
How it is checked
Audit method: Shell command
bad=0; for p in /etc/pam.d/system-password /etc/pam.d/system-auth; do grep -Pq "^\h*password\h+[^#\n\r]+\h+pam_pwhistory\.so\h+([^#\n\r]+\h+)?remember=([5-9]|[1-9][0-9]+)\b" $p 2>/dev/null || bad=1; done; [ $bad -eq 0 ] && echo compliant || echo noncompliant- Expected output
compliant
How it is fixed
Fix method: Guidance or infrastructure patch
Set remembered password history to conform to site policy. Many distributions provide tools for updating PAM configuration, consult your documentation for details. If no tooling is provided edit the appropriate /etc/pam.d/ configuration file and add or modify the pam_pwhistory.so or pam_unix.so lines to include the remember option: password required pam_pwhistory.so remember=5 password required pam_unix.so remember=5
Properties
- Operating systems
- Any
- Tags
- authcontainer-optimized-oscos
- Reference
- CIS Google Container-Optimized OS Benchmark v1.2.0 - 5.2.2 Ensure password reuse is limited
Check this host
Run this on a machine you are allowed to audit. The scan is read-only.
tmaegis scan --target cos --level 2