RHEL 9 passwords must have a 24 hours minimum password lifetime restriction in /etc/shadow.

STIG ID: RHEL-09-611080  |  SRG: SRG-OS-000075-GPOS-00043 | Severity: medium |  CCI: CCI-000198

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, the password could be repeatedly changed in a short period of time to defeat the organization's policy regarding password reuse.

Check

Verify that RHEL 9 has configured the minimum time period between password changes for each user account as one day or greater with the following command:

$ sudo awk -F: '$4 < 1 {print $1 " " $4}' /etc/shadow

If any results are returned that are not associated with a system account, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure noncompliant accounts to enforce a 24 hour minimum password lifetime:

$ sudo passwd -n 1 [user]