SLEM 5 must not allow passwords to be reused for a minimum of five generations.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-261384	SLEM-05-611045	SV-261384r996583_rule		Medium

Description

Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks. If the information system or application allows the user to consecutively reuse their password when that password has exceeded its defined lifetime, the end result is a password that is not changed as per policy requirements.

STIG	Date
SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro (SLEM) 5 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2025-05-08

Details

Check Text (C-65113r996581_chk)

Verify SLEM 5 prohibits the reuse of a password for a minimum of five generations with the following command:

> grep pam_pwhistory.so /etc/pam.d/common-password
password requisite pam_pwhistory.so remember=5 use_authtok

If the value for "remember" is not "5" or greater, if the "remember" option is missing from the line, if the "use_authtok" option is missing, if the second column has a value different from "requisite", if the line is commented out, or the line is missing, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-65021r996582_fix)

Configure SLEM 5 password history to prohibit the reuse of a password for a minimum of five generations.

Edit "/etc/pam.d/common-password" and edit the line containing "pam_pwhistory.so" to contain the option "remember=5 use_authtok" after the third column.