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

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-67607	AOSX-11-000590	SV-82097r1_rule		Medium

Description
The minimum password length must be set to 15 characters. 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. The use of more characters in a password helps to exponentially increase the time and/or resources required to compromise the password.

Description

The minimum password length must be set to 15 characters. 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. The use of more characters in a password helps to exponentially increase the time and/or resources required to compromise the password.

STIG	Date
Apple OS X 10.11 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2017-01-05

Details

Check Text ( C-68173r1_chk )
To check the currently applied policies for password and accounts, use the following command: /usr/bin/sudo /usr/sbin/system_profiler SPConfigurationProfileDataType \| /usr/bin/grep minLength The parameter minLength should be "15". If it is less than "15", this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-73721r1_fix)
This setting is enforced using the "Passcode Policy" configuration profile. Note: Updates to password restrictions must be thoroughly evaluated in a test environment. Mistakes in configuration may block password change and local user creation operations, as well as, lock out all local users, including administrators.