RHEL-10-600220 - RHEL 10 must enforce that passwords be created with a minimum of 15 characters.

Information

The shorter the password, the lower the number of possible combinations that must 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 increase exponentially the time and/or resources required to compromise the password.

RHEL 10 uses "pwquality" as a mechanism to enforce password complexity. Configurations are set in the "etc/security/pwquality.conf" file.

The "minlen", sometimes noted as minimum length, acts as a "score" of complexity based on the credit components of the "pwquality" module. By setting the credit components to a negative value, those components will not only be required but will not count toward the total "score" of "minlen". This will enable "minlen" to require a 15-character minimum.

The DOD minimum password requirement is 15 characters.

Solution

Configure RHEL 10 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

Item Details

Audit Name: DISA Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 STIG v1r1

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 9aca4c44b1fc84ea4d6c56170bc7f249d9b6f1c4a718b4fc79689fc2f9c5a287

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RHEL-10-600220 - RHEL 10 must enforce that passwords be created with a minimum of 15 characters.

Information

Solution

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Item Details