Details

Enforcing a minimum password lifetime helps to prevent repeated password changes to defeat the password reuse or history enforcement requirement. If users are allowed to immediately and continually change their password, then the password could be repeatedly changed in a short period of time to defeat the organization’s policy regarding password reuse.

Solution

Configure the Ubuntu operating system to enforce a 24 hours/1 day minimum password lifetime.

Add, or modify the following line in the ‘/etc/login.defs’ file:

PASS_MIN_DAYS 1

Supportive Information

The following resource is also helpful.

• https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_CAN_Ubuntu_16-04_LTS_V2R3_STIG.zip

This security hardening control applies to the following category of controls within NIST 800-53: Identification and Authentication.This control applies to the following type of system Unix.

References

• 800-53|IA-5(1)(d)
• CAT|II
• CCI|CCI-000198
• Rule-ID|SV-214959r610931_rule
• STIG-ID|UBTU-16-010210
• STIG-Legacy|SV-90151
• STIG-Legacy|V-75471
• Vuln-ID|V-214959

Source

• Tenable.com/audits