Ensure 'Relax minimum password length limits' is set to 'Enabled'

HighLevel 1Automatedwindows

Description

This policy setting determines whether the minimum password length setting can be increased beyond the legacy limit of 14 characters. For more information, please see the following Microsoft Security Blog. The recommended state for this setting is: Enabled. Note: This setting only affects local accounts on the computer. Domain accounts are only affected by settings on the Domain Controllers, because that is where domain accounts are stored.

How it is checked

Audit method: Windows registry

registry

$bad = @(); $v = (Get-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SAM' -Name 'RelaxMinimumPasswordLengthLimits' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).'RelaxMinimumPasswordLengthLimits'; if (-not ($null -ne $v -and @(1) -contains [int64]$v)) { $bad += 'RelaxMinimumPasswordLengthLimits=' + $v }; if ($bad.Count -eq 0) { 'compliant' } else { 'non-compliant: ' + ($bad -join ', ') }

Expected output: compliant

How it is fixed

Fix method: Shell command

shell

if (-not (Test-Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SAM')) { New-Item -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SAM' -Force | Out-Null }; New-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SAM' -Name 'RelaxMinimumPasswordLengthLimits' -Value 1 -PropertyType DWord -Force | Out-Null

Properties

Operating systems: windows-10
Tags: cis-convertedregistrywindows
Reference: CIS Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise Benchmark v4.0.0 - 1.1.6

Check this host

Run this on a machine you are allowed to audit. The scan is read-only.

shell

tmaegis scan --target windows