LowOS hardeningBLWK-ACCT-002

Password maximum age is excessively long

What this means

PASS_MAX_DAYS in /etc/login.defs is ‹pass max days› — passwords never expire in any practical sense, so a leaked credential stays valid indefinitely.

How to fix it

Set PASS_MAX_DAYS 90 (or your organization's policy) in /etc/login.defs.

Check it yourself

Run a scan and look for BLWK-ACCT-002 in the results:

bulwark scan

Installed the standalone CLI package instead of the app? The command is bulwarkctl.

How Bulwark decides

Bulwark reads login_defs and reports this check when:

pass_max_days > 365

If a value can't be read, Bulwark reports the check as undetermined rather than passing it. View the rule source.

References

• CIS Benchmark 6.2.1

Related checks

• Cron entry runs a downloader piped to a shell · BLWK-ACCT-001
• Password minimum age is zero · BLWK-ACCT-003
• Password hashing rounds are not explicitly configured · BLWK-ACCT-004
• Default UMASK is not explicitly configured · BLWK-ACCT-005
• A sensitive system file is world-writable · BLWK-FS-001
• /etc/shadow is world-readable · BLWK-FS-002