CISC-ND-000550 The Cisco router must be configured to enforce a minimum 15-character password length.
All changes in this version
Maps to IA-5(1) via CCI-004066, CCI-000205
Title
The Cisco router must be configured to enforce a minimum 15-character password length.
Control
Review the Cisco router configuration to verify that it is compliant with this requirement as shown in the example below. aaa new-model ! ! aaa common-criteria policy PASSWORD_POLICY min-length 15 If the Cisco router is not configured to enforce a minimum 15-character password length, this is a finding.
Discussion
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. The shorter the password, the lower the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised. Use of more characters in a password helps to exponentially increase the time and/or resources required to compromise the password.
Related controls
CCI-000205, CCI-004066
Fix
Configure the Cisco router to enforce a minimum 15-character password length as shown in the example below. R1(config)#aaa common-criteria policy PASSWORD_POLICY R1(config-cc-policy)#min-length 15 R1(config-cc-policy)#exit