Title

Amazon Linux 2023 must enforce a minimum 15-character password length. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

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. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000078-GPOS-00046, SRG-OS-000725-GPOS-00180

Check Content

Verify Amazon Linux 2023 enforces a minimum 15-character password length with the following command: $ sudo grep -rs minlen /etc/security/pwquality.conf /etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/*.conf /etc/security/pwquality.conf: minlen = 15 If the command does not return a "minlen" value of 15 or greater, or the line is commented out, this is a finding. If conflicting results are returned, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure Amazon Linux 2023 to enforce a minimum 15-character password length. Add or update the following line in the "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" file or a configuration file in the "/etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/" directory to contain the "minlen" parameter: minlen = 15 Remove any configurations that conflict with the above value.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-274137r1120725_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-274137

Group Title: SRG-OS-000078-GPOS-00046

Expert Comments

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