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

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-38658	RHEL-06-000274	SV-50459r2_rule		Medium

Description
Preventing reuse of previous passwords helps ensure that a compromised password is not reused by a user.

STIG	Date
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2015-12-03

Details

Check Text ( C-46219r2_chk )
To verify the password reuse setting is compliant, run the following command: $ grep remember /etc/pam.d/system-auth The output should show the following at the end of the line: remember=5 If it does not, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-43608r2_fix)
Do not allow users to reuse recent passwords. This can be accomplished by using the "remember" option for the "pam_unix" PAM module. In the file "/etc/pam.d/system-auth", append "remember=5" to the line which refers to the "pam_unix.so" module, as shown: password sufficient pam_unix.so [existing_options] remember=5 The DoD requirement is five passwords.