V-269785

Discussion

Use of a complex password helps to increase the time and resources required to compromise the password. Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks. Password complexity is one factor of several that determine how long it takes to crack a password. The more complex the password, the greater the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised. Multifactor authentication (MFA) is required for all administrative and user accounts on network devices, except for an account of last resort and (where applicable) a root account. Passwords should only be used when MFA using PKI is not available, and for the account of last resort and root account.

Check Content

Where passwords are used, confirm that the OS10 Switch and associated authentication server enforces password complexity by requiring that at least one special character be used.

Review the configuration to verify that the special-char password-attribute is set to 1:

OS10# show running-configuration password-attributes
!
password-attributes character-restriction special-char 1

If the OS10 Switch and associated authentication server does not require that at least one special character be used in each password, this is a finding.