Detections
Analytics
PHTN-30-000030 - The Photon operating system must enforce a minimum eight-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
Navigate to and open:/etc/pam.d/system-password
Add the following, replacing any existing 'pam_cracklib.so' line:
password requisite pam_cracklib.so dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 lcredit=-1 ocredit=-1 minlen=8 minclass=4 difok=4 retry=3 maxsequence=0 enforce_for_root
Note: On vCenter appliances, the equivalent file must be edited under '/etc/applmgmt/appliance', if one exists, for the changes to persist after a reboot.
See Also
https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_VMW_vSphere_7-0_Y25M01_STIG.zip
Item Details
Audit Name: DISA STIG VMware vSphere 7.0 Photon OS v1r4
Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION
References: 800-53|IA-5(1)(a), CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000205, Rule-ID|SV-256507r982202_rule, STIG-ID|PHTN-30-000030, Vuln-ID|V-256507
Plugin: Unix
Control ID: fdf28cf5f8a0d2497e1c4920a5d8d33def9a7c174d343df33637c4ab111be5d0