Re: NIST SP 800-63B and Passwords

[Ken Connelly <ken.connelly () UNI EDU>]

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/>
>
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>
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-- 
- 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

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