GEN000580 - The system must require passwords contain a minimum of 15 characters.

Information

The use of longer passwords reduces the ability of attackers to successfully obtain valid passwords using guessing or exhaustive search techniques by increasing the password search space.

Solution

Edit "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" to include the line:
password required pam_cracklib.so minlen=15
prior to the "password include system-auth-ac" line.

Edit /etc/login.defs to include the line:

PASS_MIN_LEN 15

See Also

http://iasecontent.disa.mil/stigs/zip/U_RedHat_5_V1R18_STIG.zip

Item Details

Category: IDENTIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION

References: 800-53|IA-5(1)(a), CAT|II, CCI|CCI-000205, Group-ID|V-11947, Rule-ID|SV-37260r3_rule, STIG-ID|GEN000580, Vuln-ID|V-11947

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: b498441e03b3f859c3cc373b0088b31766840444c088e7d0966c2b224360a685