STIGQter: STIG Summary: VMware vSphere 8.0 vCenter Appliance Photon OS 4.0 Security Technical Implementation Guide Version: 2 Release: 2 Benchmark Date: 01 Jul 2026:

The Photon operating system must prohibit password reuse for a minimum of five generations.

DISA Rule

SV-258822r1003637_rule

Vulnerability Number

V-258822

Group Title

SRG-OS-000077-GPOS-00045

Rule Version

PHTN-40-000043

Severity

CAT II

CCI(s)

• CCI-004061 - For password-based authentication, verify when users create or update passwords, that the passwords are not found on the list of commonly-used, expected, or compromised passwords in IA-5 (1) (a).

Weight

10

Fix Recommendation

Navigate to and open:

/etc/pam.d/system-password

Configure the pam_pwhistory.so line to have the "remember" option set to 5 or greater as follows:

password required pam_pwhistory.so remember=5 retry=3 enforce_for_root use_authtok

Note: On vCenter appliances, the equivalent file must be edited under "/etc/applmgmt/appliance", if one exists, for the changes to persist after a reboot.

Check Contents

At the command line, run the following commands to verify passwords are not reused for a minimum of five generations:

# grep '^password.*pam_pwhistory.so' /etc/pam.d/system-password

Example result:

password required pam_pwhistory.so remember=5 retry=3 enforce_for_root use_authtok

If the "remember" option is not set to "5" or greater, this is a finding.

Vulnerability Number

V-258822

Documentable

False

Rule Version

PHTN-40-000043

Severity Override Guidance

At the command line, run the following commands to verify passwords are not reused for a minimum of five generations:

# grep '^password.*pam_pwhistory.so' /etc/pam.d/system-password

Example result:

password required pam_pwhistory.so remember=5 retry=3 enforce_for_root use_authtok

If the "remember" option is not set to "5" or greater, this is a finding.

Check Content Reference

M

Target Key

5569