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

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-58369	AOSX-09-000590	SV-72799r1_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 10.9 (Mavericks) Workstation Security Technical Implementation Guide	2015-02-26

Details

Check Text ( C-59195r1_chk )
To check the currently applied policies for password and accounts, use the following command: sudo system_profiler SPConfigurationProfileDataType \| grep minLength The parameter minLength should be '15'. If it is less than '15', this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-63685r1_fix)
This setting is enforced using a configuration profile.