The system must require passwords contain a minimum of 14 characters.

From Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Security Technical Implementation Guide

Associated with IA controls: IAIA-2, IAIA-1

Associated with: CCI-000205

SV-37260r1_rule The system must require passwords contain a minimum of 14 characters.

Vulnerability 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.

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Fix text

Edit "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" to include the line: password required pam_cracklib.so minlen=14 prior to the "password include system-auth-ac" line.

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