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Ensure IAM password policy requires minimum length of 14 or greater

Set the IAM password policy to ensure passwords consist of at least 14 characters. Password policies are, in part, used to enforce password complexity requirements. Setting a password complexity policy increases account resiliency against brute force login attempts.

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Risk Level: Low
Cloud Entity: AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
CloudGuard Rule ID: D9.AWS.IAM.12
Covered by Spectral: Yes
Category: Security, Identity, & Compliance

GSL LOGIC

Iam should have passwordPolicy.minPasswordLength>=14

REMEDIATION

From Portal

  1. Go to AWS Management Console: https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/
  2. Navigate to IAM Services.
  3. Under Access management go to Account settings.
  4. Select 'Change password policy'.
  5. Set the Enforce minimum password length to be '14' characters.
  6. Click save changes.

From TF
Set the 'minimum_password_length' to be equal to 14:

resource "aws_iam_account_password_policy" "strict" {
	...
	minimum_password_length        = 14
	...
}

From Command Line
run:

aws iam update-account-password-policy --minimum-password-length 14

References

  1. https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/679
  2. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_credentials_passwords_account-policy.html
  3. https://awscli.amazonaws.com/v2/documentation/api/latest/reference/iam/update-account-password-policy.html

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

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IAM is a feature of your AWS account offered at no additional charge. You will be charged only for use of other AWS services by your users.

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Updated over 1 year ago