Possible Password Policy Enumeration - Linux (via auditd)

title: Possible Password Policy Enumeration - Linux (via auditd)
id: 8dbfa16a-bf16-5242-9671-9034750f069a
status: stable
description: This rule detects password policy discovery commands
references:
    - https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1201/
    - https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/f339e7da7d05f6057fdfcdd3742bfcf365fee2a9/atomics/T1201/T1201.md
    - https://linux.die.net/man/1/chage
    - https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/passwd.1.html
    - https://superuser.com/questions/150675/how-to-display-password-policy-information-for-a-user-ubuntu
author: Huntrule Team
date: 2026-06-22
tags:
    - attack.discovery
    - attack.t1201
logsource:
    product: linux
    service: auditd
detection:
    selection_files:
        type: 'PATH'
        name:
            - '/etc/login.defs'
            - '/etc/pam.d/auth'
            - '/etc/pam.d/common-account'
            - '/etc/pam.d/common-auth'
            - '/etc/pam.d/common-password'
            - '/etc/pam.d/system-auth'
            - '/etc/security/pwquality.conf'
    selection_chage:
        type: 'EXECVE'
        a0: 'chage'
        a1:
            - '--list'
            - '-l'
    selection_passwd:
        type: 'EXECVE'
        a0: 'passwd'
        a1:
            - '-S'
            - '--status'
    condition: 1 of selection_*
falsepositives:
    - Unknown
level: low