Title

The NSX vCenter must enforce a minimum 15-character password length. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

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 shorter the password, the lower the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised. Use of more characters in a password helps to exponentially increase the time and/or resources required to compromise the password.

Check Content

From the vSphere Web Client, go to Administration >> Single Sign-On >> Configuration >> Policies >> Password Policy. View the values of the password format requirements. The following password requirement should be set at a minimum: Minimum Length: 15. If this password policy is not configured as stated, this is a finding.

Fix Text

From the vSphere Web Client, go to Administration >> Single Sign-On >> Configuration >> Policies >> Password Policy. Click "Edit". Set the Minimum Length to "15" and click "OK".

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-83779r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-69175

Group Title: SRG-APP-000164-NDM-000252

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.