AIX must enforce a minimum 15-character password length.

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.

From the command prompt, run the following command to check the system default "minlen" attribute value: # lssec -f /etc/security/user -s default -a minlen default minlen=15 If the default "minlen" value is not set, or its value is less than "15", this is a finding. From the command prompt, run the following command to check "minlen" attribute value for all accounts: # lsuser -a minlen ALL root minlen=15 user1 minlen=20 user2 minlen=15 user3 minlen=15 If any users have "minlen" value less than "15", this is a finding.

From the command prompt, run the following command to set "minlen=15" for the default stanza in "/etc/security/user": # chsec -f /etc/security/user -s default -a minlen=15 For each user who has "minlen" value less than "15", set its "minlen" to "15" by running the following command from command prompt: # chsec -f /etc/security/user -s [user_name] -a minlen=15