UBTU-18-010109 - The Ubuntu operating system 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.

Solution

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

Add, or modify the 'minlen' parameter value to the '/etc/security/pwquality.conf' file:

minlen=15

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_CAN_Ubuntu_18-04_LTS_V2R13_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(1)(a), CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000205, Rule-ID|SV-219181r610963_rule, STIG-ID|UBTU-18-010109, STIG-Legacy|SV-109693, STIG-Legacy|V-100589, Vuln-ID|V-219181

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: f503e1b1deb8e84c286f614492604f0872dc7452aa9f71d2f6946d9eca175daf