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

From VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0 Security Technical Implementation Guide

Part of SRG-OS-000077-VMM-000440

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

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