The SUSE operating system must employ passwords with a minimum of 15 characters.
An XCCDF Rule
Description
<VulnDiscussion>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 determine strength and how long it takes to crack a password. Use of more characters in a password helps exponentially increase the time and/or resources required to compromise the password.</VulnDiscussion><FalsePositives></FalsePositives><FalseNegatives></FalseNegatives><Documentable>false</Documentable><Mitigations></Mitigations><SeverityOverrideGuidance></SeverityOverrideGuidance><PotentialImpacts></PotentialImpacts><ThirdPartyTools></ThirdPartyTools><MitigationControl></MitigationControl><Responsibility></Responsibility><IAControls></IAControls>
- ID
- SV-217127r1015214_rule
- Severity
- Medium
- References
- Updated
Remediation - Manual Procedure
Configure the SUSE operating system to enforce a minimum 15-character password length.
Edit "/etc/pam.d/common-password" and edit the line containing "pam_cracklib.so" to contain the option "minlen=15" after the third column.
The DoD standard requires a minimum 15-character password length.