Vulnerability Discussion

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.

Check

Verify Amazon Linux 2023 enforces 24 hours as the minimum password lifetime for new user accounts with the following command:

$ sudo grep -i pass_min_days /etc/login.defs
PASS_MIN_DAYS 1

If the "PASS_MIN_DAYS" parameter value is not "1" or greater, or is commented out, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure Amazon Linux 2023 to enforce 24 hours as the minimum password lifetime for new user accounts.

Add the following line in "/etc/login.defs" (or modify the line to have the required value):

PASS_MIN_DAYS 1