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AZLX-23-002375 - Amazon Linux 2023 must enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

Information

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 password.

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000078-GPOS-00046, SRG-OS-000725-GPOS-00180

Solution

Configure Amazon Linux 2023 to enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

Add or update the following line in the "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" file or a configuration file in the "/etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/" directory to contain the "minlen" parameter:

minlen = 15

Remove any configurations that conflict with the above value.

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_Amazon_Linux_2023_V1R2_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(1)(a), 800-53|IA-5(1)(f), CAT|II, CCI|CCI-004064, CCI|CCI-004066, Rule-ID|SV-274137r1120725_rule, STIG-ID|AZLX-23-002375, Vuln-ID|V-274137

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: c8be5df4f8ba5a0ac14d8f891ccd217dbb41113f0639fdf30375eb9a753b2997