V-11947

Discussion

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.

Check Content

Check the system password length setting.

Procedure:
Check the password minlen option
# grep pam_cracklib.so /etc/pam.d/ common-{auth,account,password,session}

Confirm the minlen option is set to at least 15 as in the example below:

password required pam_cracklib.so minlen=15

There may be other options on the line. If no such line is found, or the minlen is less than 15 this is a finding.