The description sounds like scale, and you can find some management tips on our Scale Insects on Indoor Plants page. Essentially, treatment involves physical removal of the scale and potentially treatment with insecticide. While rubbing alcohol does sometimes help to remove scale, it's usually not needed (a damp paper towel or cotton swab also is easy to use with plain water), and using alcohol and soap (separately, but especially together) risks damaging the foliage by stripping the natural waxy layer off of the leaves. If leaf injury does appear from that over the next few days, nothing can be done to remedy it, and the plant will have to outgrow the damage over time.

You do not need to repot for the sake of scale control, since the insects do not use the soil during any part of their life cycle. However, if the plant hasn't been repotted in a year or two (or more), then repotting to remove old potting soil and replace it with fresh can help keep conditions ideal for healthy roots, even if the plant doesn't need to be moved into a larger container yet.

Miri