Ensure PAM Enforces Password Requirements - Minimum Different Characters
Description
The pam_pwquality module’s difok parameter sets the number of characters
in a password that must not be present in and old password during a password change.
Modify the difok setting in /etc/security/pwquality.conf
to equal 8 to require differing characters
when changing passwords.
Rationale
Use of a complex password helps to increase the time and resources
required to compromise the password. Password complexity, or strength,
is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts
at guessing and brute–force attacks.
Password complexity is one factor of several that determines how long
it takes to crack a password. The more complex the password, the
greater the number of possible combinations that need to be tested
before the password is compromised.
Requiring a minimum number of different characters during password changes ensures that
newly changed passwords should not resemble previously compromised ones.
Note that passwords which are changed on compromised systems will still be compromised, however.
Shell script
The following script can be run on the host to remediate the issue.
#!/bin/bash
# Remediation is applicable only in certain platforms
if dpkg-query --show --showformat='${db:Status-Status}\n' 'libpam-runtime' 2>/dev/null | grep -q installed; then
var_password_pam_difok='8'
# Strip any search characters in the key arg so that the key can be replaced without
# adding any search characters to the config file.
stripped_key=$(sed 's/[\^=\$,;+]*//g' <<< "^difok")
# shellcheck disable=SC2059
printf -v formatted_output "%s = %s" "$stripped_key" "$var_password_pam_difok"
# If the key exists, change it. Otherwise, add it to the config_file.
# We search for the key string followed by a word boundary (matched by \>),
# so if we search for 'setting', 'setting2' won't match.
if LC_ALL=C grep -q -m 1 -i -e "^difok\\>" "/etc/security/pwquality.conf"; then
escaped_formatted_output=$(sed -e 's|/|\\/|g' <<< "$formatted_output")
LC_ALL=C sed -i --follow-symlinks "s/^difok\\>.*/$escaped_formatted_output/gi" "/etc/security/pwquality.conf"
else
if [[ -s "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" ]] && [[ -n "$(tail -c 1 -- "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" || true)" ]]; then
LC_ALL=C sed -i --follow-symlinks '$a'\\ "/etc/security/pwquality.conf"
fi
printf '%s\n' "$formatted_output" >> "/etc/security/pwquality.conf"
fi
else
>&2 echo 'Remediation is not applicable, nothing was done'
fi
Ansible playbook
The following playbook can be run with Ansible to remediate the issue.
- name: Gather the package facts
package_facts:
manager: auto
tags:
- CJIS-5.6.2.1.1
- DISA-STIG-UBTU-20-010053
- NIST-800-53-CM-6(a)
- NIST-800-53-IA-5(1)(b)
- NIST-800-53-IA-5(4)
- NIST-800-53-IA-5(c)
- accounts_password_pam_difok
- low_complexity
- low_disruption
- medium_severity
- no_reboot_needed
- restrict_strategy
- name: XCCDF Value var_password_pam_difok # promote to variable
set_fact:
var_password_pam_difok: !!str 8
tags:
- always
- name: Ensure PAM Enforces Password Requirements - Minimum Different Characters -
Ensure PAM variable difok is set accordingly
ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
create: true
dest: /etc/security/pwquality.conf
regexp: ^#?\s*difok
line: difok = {{ var_password_pam_difok }}
when: '"libpam-runtime" in ansible_facts.packages'
tags:
- CJIS-5.6.2.1.1
- DISA-STIG-UBTU-20-010053
- NIST-800-53-CM-6(a)
- NIST-800-53-IA-5(1)(b)
- NIST-800-53-IA-5(4)
- NIST-800-53-IA-5(c)
- accounts_password_pam_difok
- low_complexity
- low_disruption
- medium_severity
- no_reboot_needed
- restrict_strategy
