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Ensure IAM password policy requires minimum length of 14 or greater

Severity: Medium

Resource Types: AWS::IAM::AccountPasswordPolicy

Description​

Password policies are, in part, used to enforce password complexity requirements. IAM password policies can be used to ensure passwords are at least a given length. It is recommended that the password policy require a minimum password length of 14.

Setting a complex password policy increases account resiliency against unethical password hackers.

Remediation​

Perform the following to set the password policy is configured as prescribed:

From Console:​

  1. Sign into the AWS console and navigate to the IAM Dashboard.
  2. Choose Account settings.
  3. Click Change or Change password policy (if no password policy set earlier).
  4. Ensure in the Enforce minimum password length field is set to 14, then choose Save changes.

From Command Line:​

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

Note: All commands starting with "aws iam update-account-password-policy" can be combined into a single command.