RHEL-06-000060 - The system must require at least eight characters be changed between the old and new passwords during a password change - password-auth.

Information

Requiring a minimum number of different characters during password changes ensures that newly changed passwords should not resemble previously compromised ones. Note that passwords which are changed on compromised systems will still be compromised, however.

Solution

The pam_cracklib module's 'difok' parameter controls requirements for usage of different characters during a password change.

Edit /etc/pam.d/system-auth and /etc/pam.d/password-auth adding 'difok=[NUM]' after pam_cracklib.so to require differing characters when changing passwords, substituting [NUM] appropriately. The DoD requirement is 8.

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_RHEL_6_V2R2_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(1)(b), CAT|III, CCI|CCI-000195, Rule-ID|SV-217896r603264_rule, STIG-ID|RHEL-06-000060, STIG-Legacy|SV-50373, STIG-Legacy|V-38572, Vuln-ID|V-217896

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 9ce794c61bcf764c2268f71f304c8fcbc4d69a60bea066efbf6eb2b2a39e00d2