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

From VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0 Security Technical Implementation Guide

Associated with: CCI-000200

SV-77723r1_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 to something else, it would provide a potential intruder with the opportunity to keep guessing at one user's password until it was guessed correctly.

Check content

To verify the remember setting, run the following command: # grep -i "^password" /etc/pam.d/passwd | grep sufficient If the remember setting is not set or is not "remember=5", this is a finding.

Fix text

To set the remember option, add or correct the following line in "/etc/pam.d/passwd": password sufficient /lib/security/$ISA/pam_unix.so use_authtok nullok shadow sha512 remember=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.