IBM z/OS must enforce a minimum eight character password length.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-252705	SRG-OS-000481-GPOS-00481	ACF2-ES-000990	SV-252705r1001146_rule	2025-03-11	9

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
From an ACF command screen enter: SET CONTROL(GSO) LIST PSWD If "MINPSWD" is set to "8", this is not a finding.

✔️ Fix
Configure the Password option "MINPSWD" to "8".