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How to Find AWS Accounts That Do Not Prevent Reuse of the Last 24 Passwords

Password policies are used to enforce password complexity requirements. IAM password policies can be used to ensure password are comprised of different character sets.

It is recommended that password policies prevent reuse of the last 24 passwords.

info

This security check is part of the CIS Amazon Web Services Benchmarks and is rated severity medium.

Prerequisites​

This guide assumes that you have already installed and configured Fix Inventory to collect your AWS resources.

Directions​

  1. Execute the following search command in Fix Inventory Shell:

    > search is(aws_account) and password_reuse_prevention<24
    ​kind=aws_account, ..., region=fixinventory-poweruser
    ​kind=aws_account, ..., account=poweruser-team

  2. Pipe the search command into the dump command:

    > search is(aws_account) and password_reuse_prevention<24 | dump
    ​reported:
    ​  id: /aws/iam/123
    ​  name: some-name
    ​  ctime: '2022-12-05T22:53:14Z'
    ​  kind: aws_account
    ​  age: 2mo28d

    The command output will list the details of all non-compliant aws_account resources.

Remediation​

Ensure "Number of passwords to remember" is set to 24 or higher.

note

Please refer to the AWS IAM documentation for details.

Further Reading​