Application account passwords length and change requirement

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-14271	4.018	SV-29334r1_rule	IAIA-1	Medium

Description
Setting application accounts to expire may cause applications to stop functioning. The site will have a policy that application account passwords manually generated and entered by a system administrator are changed at least annually or when a system administrator with knowledge of the password leaves the organization. Application/service account passwords will be at least 15 characters and follow complexity requirements for all passwords.

Description

Setting application accounts to expire may cause applications to stop functioning. The site will have a policy that application account passwords manually generated and entered by a system administrator are changed at least annually or when a system administrator with knowledge of the password leaves the organization. Application/service account passwords will be at least 15 characters and follow complexity requirements for all passwords.

STIG	Date
Windows XP Security Technical Implementation Guide	2012-06-29

Details

Check Text ( C-11762r1_chk )
The site should have a local policy to ensure that passwords for application/service accounts are at least 15 characters in length and meet complexity requirements for all passwords. Application/service account passwords manually generated and entered by a system administrator must be changed at least annually or whenever a system administrator that has knowledge of the password leaves the organization. Interview the system administrators on their policy for application/service accounts. If it does not meet the above requirements, this is a finding. Using the DUMPSEC utility: Select “Dump Users as Table” from the “Report” menu. Select the available fields in the following sequence, and click on the “Add” button for each entry: UserName SID PswdRequired PswdExpires PswdLastSetTime LastLogonTime AcctDisabled Groups If any application accounts listed in the Dumpsec user report have a date older than one year in the “PwsdLastSetTime” column, then this is a finding. Note: The following command can be used on Windows 2003/2008 Active Directory if DumpSec cannot be run: Open a Command Prompt. Enter “Dsquery user -limit 0 -o rdn -stalepwd 365”. This will return a list of User Accounts with passwords older the one year.

Check Text ( C-11762r1_chk )

The site should have a local policy to ensure that passwords for application/service accounts are at least 15 characters in length and meet complexity requirements for all passwords. Application/service account passwords manually generated and entered by a system administrator must be changed at least annually or whenever a system administrator that has knowledge of the password leaves the organization.

Interview the system administrators on their policy for application/service accounts. If it does not meet the above requirements, this is a finding.

Using the DUMPSEC utility:

Select “Dump Users as Table” from the “Report” menu.
Select the available fields in the following sequence, and click on the “Add” button for each entry:

UserName
SID
PswdRequired
PswdExpires
PswdLastSetTime
LastLogonTime
AcctDisabled
Groups

If any application accounts listed in the Dumpsec user report have a date older than one year in the “PwsdLastSetTime” column, then this is a finding.

Note: The following command can be used on Windows 2003/2008 Active Directory if DumpSec cannot be run:

Open a Command Prompt.
Enter “Dsquery user -limit 0 -o rdn -stalepwd 365”.
This will return a list of User Accounts with passwords older the one year.

Fix Text (F-13613r1_fix)
Create application/service account passwords that are at least 15 characters in length and meet complexity requirements. Change application/service account passwords that are manually generated and entered by a system administrator at least annually or whenever an administrator with knowledge of the password leaves the organization.