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

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).

Primary

Architecture and Design
COMMISSION: This weakness refers to an incorrect design related to an architectural security tactic.

Low

Access Control
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
As passwords age, the probability that they are compromised grows.

Implementation
Previously, "password expiration" was
widely advocated as a defense-in-depth approach to
minimize the risk of weak passwords, and it has become
a common practice. Password expiration requires a
password to be changed within a fixed time window (such
as every 90 days). However, this approach has
significant limitations in the current threat
landscape, and its utility has been reduced in light of
the adoption of related protection mechanisms (such as
password complexity and computational effort), along
with the recognition that regular password changes
often caused users to generate more predictable
passwords. As a result, this is now a Discouraged
Common Practice [REF-1488] [REF-1489], especially as
the sole factor in protecting passwords. It is still
strongly encouraged to force password changes in case
of evidence of compromise, but this is not the same as
a forced "expiration" on an arbitrary time
frame.

Architecture and Design
Ensure that password aging is limited so that there is a defined maximum age for passwords. Note that if the expiration window is too short, it can cause users to generate poor or predictable passwords.

Architecture and Design
Ensure that the user is notified several times leading up to the password expiration.

Architecture and Design
Create mechanisms to prevent users from reusing passwords or creating similar passwords.

Implementation
Developers might disable clipboard paste operations into password fields as a way to discourage users from pasting a password into a clipboard. However, this might encourage users to choose less-secure passwords that are easier to type, and it can reduce the usability of password managers [REF-1294].
Discouraged Common Practice

A system requires the changing of passwords every five years.

Allowing password aging

Discouraged
This CWE entry is closely related to the
absence of a practice (password expiration) that is no
longer widely supported as an effective protection
mechanism. In addition, it might be deprecated in the
future.
Consider CWEs related to the reliance on
passwords or single-factor authentication, or other CWEs
involving weak passwords.

Password expiration was once
widely advocated (see Mitigations), but it is no longer
actively supported. It might be appropriate to Deprecate
this entry, or at least change it significantly so that
readers can consider alternate mechanisms to protect
passwords (and/or avoid passwords entirely). However, older
software - and even modern software - might still need to
be mapped to this weakness if the software is obsolete or
not actively maintained, and expiration remains the only
option.

CLASP
2006-07-19
Draft 3
2006-07-19

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2008-09-08
updated Common_Consequences, Relationships, Other_Notes, Taxonomy_Mappings

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-03-29
updated Description, Other_Notes, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-06-01
updated Common_Consequences

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-06-27
updated Common_Consequences

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2012-05-11
updated References, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2014-07-30
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2017-11-08
updated Applicable_Platforms, Likelihood_of_Exploit, Modes_of_Introduction, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2020-02-24
updated Demonstrative_Examples, References

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2020-08-20
updated Related_Attack_Patterns

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2022-10-13
updated Description, Potential_Mitigations, References, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-04-27
updated References, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-06-29
updated Mapping_Notes

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2025-09-09
4.18
2025-09-09
updated Maintenance_Notes, Mapping_Notes, Potential_Mitigations, References

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2025-12-11
4.19
2025-12-11
updated Weakness_Ordinalities

Kurt Seifried, Chris Eng, G. Ann Campbell, Larry Shields, Jeffrey Walton, Jason Dryhurst-Smith, and other members of the CWE Community
2021-12-03
Gave feedback on how to update CWE-262 and CWE-263 due to changing password management practices

Camille Gouttebroze
CAST Software
2025-03-17
4.18
2025-09-09
suggested removal of password expiration as an acceptable mitigation in CWE-521 and provided references

Allowing Unchecked Password Aging