CWE-263: Password Aging with Long Expiration

Description

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

Submission Date :

July 19, 2006, midnight

Modification Date :

2023-06-29 00:00:00+00:00

Organization :

MITRE
Extended Description

Password aging (or password rotation) is a policy that forces users to change their passwords after a defined time period passes, such as every 30 or 90 days. A long expiration provides more time for attackers to conduct password cracking before users are forced to change to a new password.

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).

Example Vulnerable Codes

Example - 1

A system requires the changing of passwords every five years.

Related Weaknesses

This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined to give an overview of the different insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction.

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