1.95 UBTU-22-611035

Information

The operating system must enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

GROUP ID: V-260565
RULE ID: SV-260565r1015016

The shorter the password, the lower the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised.

Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks. Password length is one factor of several that helps to determine strength and how long it takes to crack a password. Use of more characters in a password helps to exponentially increase the time and/or resources required to compromise the

Solution

Configure the operating system to enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

Add or modify the following line in the "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" file:

minlen = 15

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/22168

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(1), CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000205, CCI|CCI-004066, CSCv7|4.4, Rule-ID|SV-260565r1015016_rule, STIG-ID|UBTU-22-611035, Vuln-ID|V-260565

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 9d4c2c263f9035a69508e7bc7a79381ff5e3eda097e205499b49f02efa54fbe9