TOSS must enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-253069	TOSS-04-040140	SV-253069r986599_rule		Medium

Description
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.

Description

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.

STIG	Date
Tri-Lab Operating System Stack (TOSS) 4 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2024-05-30

Details

Check Text ( C-56522r824877_chk )
Verify TOSS enforces a minimum 15-character password length. The "minlen" option sets the minimum number of characters in a new password. Check for the value of the "minlen" option in "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" with the following command: $ sudo grep minlen /etc/security/pwquality.conf minlen = 15 If the command does not return a "minlen" value of 15 or greater, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-56472r824878_fix)
Configure TOSS to enforce a minimum 15-character password length. Add the following line to "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" (or modify the line to have the required value): minlen = 15