The Photon operating system must enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

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 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.</VulnDiscussion><FalsePositives></FalsePositives><FalseNegatives></FalseNegatives><Documentable>false</Documentable><Mitigations></Mitigations><SeverityOverrideGuidance></SeverityOverrideGuidance><PotentialImpacts></PotentialImpacts><ThirdPartyTools></ThirdPartyTools><MitigationControl></MitigationControl><Responsibility></Responsibility><IAControls></IAControls>

ID: SV-258823r1015946_rule
Severity: Medium
References: CCI-000205 CCI-004066
Updated: 20 days ago

Navigate to and open:

/etc/pam.d/system-password

Configure the pam_pwquality.so line to have the "minlen" option set to "15" as follows:
password  requisite   pam_pwquality.so  dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 lcredit=-1 ocredit=-1 minlen=15 difok=8 enforce_for_root dictcheck=1

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.

The Photon operating system must enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

Description

Remediation - Manual Procedure