UBTU-20-010054 - The Ubuntu operating system must enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

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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_20-04_LTS_V1R10_STIG.zip

Item Details

References: CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000205, Rule-ID|SV-238225r832942_rule, STIG-ID|UBTU-20-010054, Vuln-ID|V-238225

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: eca91675686a7fcf2166fd8e5839fe4ef1e209ba5fe6fb94f3e1df6c5b25ec38