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

STIG ID: APPL-13-003010  |  SRG: SRG-OS-000078-GPOS-00046 |  Severity: medium |  CCI: CCI-000205 |  Vulnerability Id: V-257229

Vulnerability Discussion

The minimum password length must be set to 15 characters. 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 use of more characters in a password helps to exponentially increase the time and/or resources required to compromise the password.

Check

Verify the macOS system is configured to enforce a minimum 15-character password length with the following command:

/usr/sbin/system_profiler SPConfigurationProfileDataType | /usr/bin/grep "minLength"

minLength = 15;

If "minLength" is not set to "15", this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the macOS system to enforce a 15-character password length by installing the "Passcode Policy" configuration profile.