keystone/doc/source/admin/security-compliance.inc

.. -*- rst -*-

.. _security_compliance:

Security compliance and PCI-DSS
===============================

As of the Newton release, the Identity service contains additional security
compliance features, specifically to satisfy Payment Card Industry -
Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) v3.1 requirements. See
`Security Hardening PCI-DSS`_ for more information on PCI-DSS.

Security compliance features are disabled by default and most of the features
only apply to the SQL backend for the identity driver. Other identity backends,
such as LDAP, should implement their own security controls.

Enable these features by changing the configuration settings under the
``[security_compliance]`` section in ``keystone.conf``.

Setting an account lockout threshold
------------------------------------

The account lockout feature limits the number of incorrect password attempts.
If a user fails to authenticate after the maximum number of attempts, the
service disables the user. Users can be re-enabled by explicitly setting the
enable user attribute with the update user `v3`_ API call.

You set the maximum number of failed authentication attempts by setting
the ``lockout_failure_attempts``:

.. code-block:: ini

   [security_compliance]
   lockout_failure_attempts = 6

You set the number of minutes a user would be locked out by setting
the ``lockout_duration`` in seconds:

.. code-block:: ini

   [security_compliance]
   lockout_duration = 1800

If you do not set the ``lockout_duration``, users will be locked out
indefinitely until the user is explicitly enabled via the API.

You can ensure specific users are never locked out. This can be useful for
service accounts or administrative users. You can do this by setting
the user option for :ref:`ignore_lockout_failure_attempts`.

Disabling inactive users
------------------------

PCI-DSS 8.1.4 requires that inactive user accounts be removed or disabled
within 90 days. You can achieve this by setting the
``disable_user_account_days_inactive``:

.. code-block:: ini

   [security_compliance]
   disable_user_account_days_inactive = 90

This above example means that users that have not authenticated (inactive) for
the past 90 days are automatically disabled. Users can be re-enabled by
explicitly setting the enable user attribute via the API.

Force users to change password upon first use
---------------------------------------------

PCI-DSS 8.2.6 requires users to change their password for first time use and
upon an administrative password reset. Within the identity `user API`_,
`create user` and `update user` are considered administrative password
changes. Whereas, `change password for user` is a self-service password
change. Once this feature is enabled, new users, and users that have had their
password reset, will be required to change their password upon next
authentication (first use), before being able to access any services.

Prior to enabling this feature, you may want to exempt some users that you do
not wish to be required to change their password. You can mark a user as
exempt by setting the user options attribute
:ref:`ignore_change_password_upon_first_use`.

.. WARNING::

   Failure to mark service users as exempt from this requirement will result
   in your service account passwords becoming expired after being reset.

When ready, you can configure it so that users are forced to change their
password upon first use by setting ``change_password_upon_first_use``:

.. code-block:: ini

   [security_compliance]
   change_password_upon_first_use = True

.. _`user API`: https://docs.openstack.org/api-ref/identity/v3/index.html#users

Configuring password expiration
-------------------------------

Passwords can be configured to expire within a certain number of days by
setting the ``password_expires_days``:

.. code-block:: ini

   [security_compliance]
   password_expires_days = 90

Once set, any new password changes have an expiration date based on the
date/time of the password change plus the number of days defined here. Existing
passwords will not be impacted. If you want existing passwords to have an
expiration date, you would need to run a SQL script against the password table
in the database to update the expires_at column.

If there exists a user whose password you do not want to expire, keystone
supports setting that via the user option :ref:`ignore_password_expiry`.

Configuring password strength requirements
------------------------------------------

You can set password strength requirements, such as requiring numbers in
passwords or setting a minimum password length, by adding a regular
expression to the ``password_regex`` setting:

.. code-block:: ini

   [security_compliance]
   password_regex = ^(?=.*\d)(?=.*[a-zA-Z]).{7,}$

The above example is a regular expression that requires a password to have:

* One (1) letter
* One (1) digit
* Minimum length of seven (7) characters

If you do set the ``password_regex``, you should provide text that
describes your password strength requirements. You can do this by setting the
``password_regex_description``:

.. code-block:: ini

   [security_compliance]
   password_regex_description = Passwords must contain at least 1 letter, 1
                                digit, and be a minimum length of 7
                                characters.

It is imperative that the ``password_regex_description`` matches the actual
regex. If the ``password_regex`` and the ``password_regex_description`` do
not match, it will cause user experience to suffer since this description
will be returned to users to explain why their requested password was
insufficient.

.. note::

   You must ensure the ``password_regex_description`` accurately and
   completely describes the ``password_regex``. If the two options are out of
   sync, the help text could inaccurately describe the password requirements
   being applied to the password. This would lead to a poor user experience.

Requiring a unique password history
-----------------------------------

The password history requirements controls the number of passwords for a user
that must be unique before an old password can be reused. You can enforce this
by setting the ``unique_last_password_count``:

.. code-block:: ini

   [security_compliance]
   unique_last_password_count= 5

The above example does not allow a user to create a new password that is the
same as any of their last four previous passwords.

Similarly, you can set the number of days that a password must be used before
the user can change it by setting the ``minimum_password_age``:

.. code-block:: ini

   [security_compliance]
   minimum_password_age = 1

In the above example, once a user changes their password, they would not be
able to change it again for one day. This prevents users from changing their
passwords immediately in order to wipe out their password history and reuse an
old password.

.. note::

   When you set ``password_expires_days``, the value for the
   ``minimum_password_age`` should be less than the ``password_expires_days``.
   Otherwise, users would not be able to change their passwords before they
   expire.

Prevent Self-Service Password Changes
-------------------------------------

If there exists a user who should not be able to change her own password via
the keystone password change API, keystone supports setting that via the user
option :ref:`lock_password`.

This is typically used in the case where passwords are managed externally to
keystone.

.. _Security Hardening PCI-DSS: https://specs.openstack.org/openstack/keystone-specs/specs/keystone/newton/pci-dss.html

.. _v3: https://docs.openstack.org/api-ref/identity/v3/index.html#update-user