The system must require passwords contain no more than three consecutive repeating characters.

From SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v11 for System z Security Technical Implementation Guide

Associated with: CCI-000366

SV-44877r1_rule The system must require passwords contain no more than three consecutive repeating characters.

Vulnerability discussion

To enforce the use of complex passwords, the number of consecutive repeating characters is limited. Passwords with excessive repeated characters may be more vulnerable to password-guessing attacks.

Check content

Check the system password maxrepeat setting. Procedure: Check the password maxrepeat option # grep pam_cracklib.so /etc/pam.d/common-password Confirm the maxrepeat option is set to 3 or less as in the example below: password required pam_cracklib.so maxrepeat=3 There may be other options on the line. If no such line is found, or the maxrepeat option is more than 3 this is a finding. A setting of zero disables this option. NOTE: This option was not available in SLES 11 until service pack 2(SP2).

Fix text

Edit /etc/pam.d/common-password and set the maxrepeat option to a value of 3 or less on the pam_cracklib line.

Pro Tips

Lavender hyperlinks in small type off to the right (of CSS class id, if you view the page source) point to globally unique URIs for each document and item. Copy the link location and paste anywhere you need to talk unambiguously about these things.

You can obtain data about documents and items in other formats. Simply provide an HTTP header Accept: text/turtle or Accept: application/rdf+xml.