The system must prohibit the reuse of passwords within five iterations.

From HP-UX 11.23 Security Technical Implementation Guide

Associated with IA controls: IAIA-2, IAIA-1

Associated with: CCI-000200

SV-38417r1_rule The system must prohibit the reuse of passwords within five iterations.

Vulnerability discussion

If a user, or root, used the same password continuously or was allowed to change it back shortly after being forced to change it, this would provide a potential intruder with the opportunity to keep guessing at one user's password until it was guessed correctly.

Check content

Fix text

Edit /etc/default/security and set PASSWORD_HISTORY_DEPTH to 5.

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.