The F5 BIG-IP appliance must enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one numeric character be used.

Use of a complex password helps to increase the time and resources required to compromise the password. Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks.

Password complexity is one factor of several that determine how long it takes to crack a password. The more complex the password, the greater the number of possible combinations that need to be tested before the password is compromised.

Multifactor authentication (MFA) is required for all administrative and user accounts on network devices, except for an account of last resort and (where applicable) a root account. Passwords must only be used when MFA using PKI is not available, and for the account of last resort and root account.

From the BIG-IP GUI: 1. System. 2. Users. 3. Authentication. 4. Verify that "Secure Password Enforcement" is set to "Enabled". 5. Verify under "Required Characters" that "Numeric" is set to at least 1.

From the BIG-IP console, type the following command:

tmsh list auth password-policy required-numeric

Note: Verify the value is set to at least 1.

If the BIG-IP appliance is not configured to enforce password complexity by requiring that at least one numeric character be used, this is a finding.

From the BIG-IP GUI: 1. System. 2. Users. 3. Authentication. 4. Under "Password Policy" set "Secure Password Enforcement" to "Enabled". 5. Under "Required Characters" set "Numeric" to at least 1. 6. Click "Update".

From the BIG-IP console, type the following command:

tmsh modify auth password-policy required-numeric 1 tmsh save sys config