SSMC must enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-255241	SRG-OS-000078-GPOS-00046	SSMC-OS-010070	SV-255241r1015727_rule	2024-08-27	2

Description
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.

Description

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.

ℹ️ Check
To verify that the 15-character minimum password length policy is set, do the following: 1. Log on to SSMC appliance as ssmcadmin. Press "X" to escape to shell. 2. Execute the following command: $ sudo /ssmc/bin/config_security.sh -o long_password_policy -a status Long password policy is enabled If the status does not read "enabled", this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
To enable and enforce the 15-character minimum password length policy, do the following: 1. Log on to SSMC appliance as ssmcadmin. Press "X" to escape to general bash shell. 2. Execute the following command: $ sudo /ssmc/bin/config_security.sh -o long_password_policy -a enable -f Note: ssmcaudit user should be disabled before executing this fix procedure.