Educause Security Discussion mailing list archives
Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords
From: "Lovaas,Steven" <Steven.Lovaas () COLOSTATE EDU>
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2017 02:24:55 +0000
We also shifted several years ago from 8 characters and lots of complexity to at least 15 characters. The only composition requirement now is that there has to be at least one letter, and they get to change once a year. Beyond that we talk about how length gives greater strength, and about remembering by using chunks (therefore "passphrases"). More than once I've shown the math to an auditor, who seemed to leave satisfied. Some departmental sysadmins have chosen to expire certain admin passwords more often, just to avoid having the conversation 😉. Steve =================== Steven Lovaas Information Security Officer Colorado State University steven.lovaas () colostate edu<mailto:steven.lovaas () colostate edu> 970-297-3707 =================== ________________________________ From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU> on behalf of Ken Connelly <ken.connelly () UNI EDU> Sent: Monday, July 31, 2017 6:53 PM To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU Subject: Re: [SECURITY] NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Until your auditors catch up with the recommendations (I'm guessing that will be 5-10 years if they're anything like ours), you'll have to negotiate any relaxing with them. For maybe 98% of our accounts here, i.e., normal end-user accounts with little/no privs, we require minimum length of 15 and suggest multiple categories of characters but don't actually require that and also suggest that our users think "passphrase" rather than "password". Those passphrases expire after a year. We went to this 2 or 3 years ago. Prior to that, passwords were minimum 8, "complex" (3 of 4 categories), and expired after 90 days. - ken On 7/31/17 7:11 PM, Miguel Hernandez wrote:
Colleagues, A question about the latest version of NIST SP 800-63B (Authentication and Lifecycle Management) (https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-63b). Since its release in June, not a week has gone by without a handful of IT folks stopping by and asking when we are going to (1) disable all password complexity requirements and (2) stop requiring periodic password changes. As I’ve reviewed the NIST publication I note the two recommendations quoted below which has fueled the above questions: “Verifiers SHOULD NOT impose other composition rules (e.g., requiring mixtures of different character types or prohibiting consecutively repeated characters) for memorized secrets.” “Verifiers SHOULD NOT require memorized secrets to be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically).“ So my question is: Do any of you have a sense of urgency to disable your password complexity checks and disable password expiration? Is this something you plan to implement over time? Will you create some relaxed version of your current password rules (for example, maybe require at least upper and lower case, and extend password expiration to 1 year). Or will you just continue with business as usual and make no changes. The use of the word “SHOULD” is of course non-mandatory language and is only a recommendation. There are some though who think these recommendations are actually requirements and must be implemented immediately. I’d just like to get an idea of what my fellow higher-ed institutions are doing. eSig Logo Miguel Hernandez IV, Ph.D. CISSP, CISA Associate Vice Chancellor ITS Chief Information Security Officer 2411 West 14th Street, Tempe AZ 85281 email | miguel.hernandez () domail maricopa edu <mailto:miguel.hernandez () domail maricopa edu> website | https://www.maricopa.edu <https://www.maricopa.edu/> *Follow me on Twitter <https://twitter.com/mh4phd>.* This message contains information which may be confidential and/or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender, delete and do not use or disseminate this information.
-- - Ken ================================================================= Ken Connelly Director, Information Security Information Security Officer University of Northern Iowa email: Ken.Connelly () uni edu p: (319) 273-5850 f: (319) 273-7373 Any request to divulge your UNI password via e-mail is fraudulent!
Current thread:
- NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Miguel Hernandez (Jul 31)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Ken Connelly (Jul 31)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Lovaas,Steven (Jul 31)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Laura Raderman (Aug 01)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Flynn, Gary - flynngn (Aug 01)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords David Curry (Aug 01)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Steven Alexander (Aug 01)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Manjak, Martin (Aug 01)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Brad Judy (Aug 01)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Manjak, Martin (Aug 01)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Barton, Robert W. (Aug 01)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Steven Alexander (Aug 01)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Ken Connelly (Jul 31)
- Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords Jones, Mark B (Aug 01)