Amazon Linux 2023 must enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-274137	SRG-OS-000078-GPOS-00046	AZLX-23-002375	SV-274137r1120725_rule	2025-07-15	1

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. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000078-GPOS-00046, SRG-OS-000725-GPOS-00180

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. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000078-GPOS-00046, SRG-OS-000725-GPOS-00180

ℹ️ Check
Verify Amazon Linux 2023 enforces a minimum 15-character password length with the following command: $ sudo grep -rs minlen /etc/security/pwquality.conf /etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/*.conf /etc/security/pwquality.conf: minlen = 15 If the command does not return a "minlen" value of 15 or greater, or the line is commented out, this is a finding. If conflicting results are returned, this is a finding.

ℹ️ Check

Verify Amazon Linux 2023 enforces a minimum 15-character password length with the following command: $ sudo grep -rs minlen /etc/security/pwquality.conf /etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/*.conf /etc/security/pwquality.conf: minlen = 15 If the command does not return a "minlen" value of 15 or greater, or the line is commented out, this is a finding. If conflicting results are returned, this is a finding.

✔️ Fix
Configure Amazon Linux 2023 to enforce a minimum 15-character password length. Add or update the following line in the "/etc/security/pwquality.conf" file or a configuration file in the "/etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/" directory to contain the "minlen" parameter: minlen = 15 Remove any configurations that conflict with the above value.