AOS must require that when a password is changed, the characters are changed in at least eight of the positions within the password.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-266967	SRG-APP-000170-NDM-000329	ARBA-ND-000329	SV-266967r1039961_rule	2024-10-29	1

Description
If the application allows the user to consecutively reuse extensive portions of passwords, this increases the chances of password compromise by increasing the window of opportunity for attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks. The number of changed characters refers to the number of changes required with respect to the total number of positions in the current password. In other words, characters may be the same within the two passwords; however, the positions of the like characters must be different. Multifactor authentication (MFA) is required for all administrative and user accounts on network devices, except for an account of last resort and (where applicable) a root account. Passwords should only be used when MFA using public key infrastructure (PKI) is not available and for the account of last resort and root account.

Description

If the application allows the user to consecutively reuse extensive portions of passwords, this increases the chances of password compromise by increasing the window of opportunity for attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks. The number of changed characters refers to the number of changes required with respect to the total number of positions in the current password. In other words, characters may be the same within the two passwords; however, the positions of the like characters must be different. Multifactor authentication (MFA) is required for all administrative and user accounts on network devices, except for an account of last resort and (where applicable) a root account. Passwords should only be used when MFA using public key infrastructure (PKI) is not available and for the account of last resort and root account.

ℹ️ Check
Verify the AOS configuration with the following command: show aaa password-policy mgmt If "Minimum number of differing characters between passwords" is not set to "8 digits", this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Configure AOS with the following commands: configure terminal aaa password-policy mgmt min-char-difference 8 exit write memory