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Weakness (CWE)

CWE-263: Password Aging with Long Expiration

Base Draft Mapping discouraged

The product supports password aging, but the expiration period is too long.

More detail

Note that while password aging was once considered an important security feature, it has since fallen out of favor by many, because it is not as effective against modern threats compared to other mechanisms such as slow hashes. In addition, forcing frequent changes can unintentionally encourage users to select less-secure passwords. However, password aging is still in use due to factors such as compliance requirements, e.g., Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

How to prevent it (5 mitigations)
  1. Implementation

    Previously, "password expiration" was
    widely advocated as a defense-in-depth approach to
    minimize the risk of weak passwords, and it has become
    a common practice. Password expiration requires a
    password to be changed within a fixed time window (such
    as every 90 days). However, this approach has
    significant limitations in the current threat
    landscape, and its utility has been reduced in light of
    the adoption of related protection mechanisms (such as
    password complexity and computational effort), along
    with the recognition that regular password changes
    often caused users to generate more predictable
    passwords. As a result, this is now a Discouraged
    Common Practice [REF-1488] [REF-1489], especially as
    the sole factor in protecting passwords. It is still
    strongly encouraged to force password changes in case
    of evidence of compromise, but this is not the same as
    a forced "expiration" on an arbitrary time
    frame.

  2. Architecture and Design

    Ensure that password aging is limited so that there is a defined maximum age for passwords. Note that if the expiration window is too short, it can cause users to generate poor or predictable passwords.

  3. Architecture and Design

    Ensure that the user is notified several times leading up to the password expiration.

  4. Architecture and Design

    Create mechanisms to prevent users from reusing passwords or creating similar passwords.

  5. Implementation

    Developers might disable clipboard paste operations into password fields as a way to discourage users from pasting a password into a clipboard. However, this might encourage users to choose less-secure passwords that are easier to type, and it can reduce the usability of password managers [REF-1294].

Source: MITRE CWE-263

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