STIGUI
V-203634CAT II — Medium severitySV-203634r982202_rule

The operating system must enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

Rule version SRG-OS-000078-GPOS-00046 · STIG v3 · 2026-09-03

Discussion

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.

Check

Verify the operating system enforces a minimum 15-character password length. If it does not, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the operating system to enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

Identifiers

Group ID
V-203634
Group title
SRG-OS-000078
Rule ID
SV-203634r982202_rule
Check ID
C-3759r557626_chk
Fix ID
F-3759r557627_fix