Anchor Hospital Password Policy
Proprietary and Confidential
July, 2009
Revision 1
Copyright 2009 Anchor Hospital, Inc. All rights reserved. The information contained within this document is considered confidential and proprietary. This document should not be duplicated in any manner without prior written approval from Anchor Hospital, Inc.
Policy Number: IT4070-A
Policy Title: Anchor Hospital Password Policy
Policy Date: 7/20/2005
As the frontline protection for user accounts, passwords are critical to computer security. A poorly chosen password may result in the compromise of Anchor Hospital’s entire corporate network. As such, all authorized users including Anchor Hospital staff, faculty, students, contractors, and vendors, are responsible for taking the appropriate steps as outlined below to choose and secure proper passwords.
The purpose of this policy is to establish a standard for creation of strong passwords, the protection of those passwords, and the frequency of password change.
This policy encompasses all personnel who have or are responsible for any form of access supporting or requiring a password on any system residing at any Anchor Hospital facility, on any device accessing the Anchor Hospital network, or that stores any nonpublic Anchor Hospital information.
· All system-level passwords (root, enable, NT admin, application administration accounts, et cetera) must be changed on a quarterly basis at minimum.
· All production system-level passwords must be part of the Office of Information Technology-administered global password management database.
· All user-level passwords (email, Web, desktop computer, et cetera.) must be changed at least every six months. The recommended change interval is every four months.
· Password storage will be salted with a minimum of a 32-bit hash with PBKDF2 iteration of at least 10,000 iterations (NIST Special Publication 800-63A, 800-63B, n.d.), (Poza, 2021)
· Two-Factor Authentication will be required for single sign on (SSO) applications (NIST Special Publication 800-63A, 800-63B, n.d.), (Poza, 2021)
· User accounts with system-level privileges granted through group memberships or programs such as "sudo" must have a unique password from all other accounts held by that user.
· Passwords must not be inserted into email messages or other forms of electronic communication.
· Where SNMP is used, the community strings must be defined as something other than the standard defaults of "public," "private," and "system," and must be different from the passwords used to log in interactively. A keyed hash must be used where available (such as SNMPv2).
· All user-level and system-level passwords must conform to the guidelines described in section 4.2.
· Passwords will be compared against a “blacklist” of unacceptable passwords. This list may include breach corpuses, dictionary words, and specific words that a user is likely to choose. (NIST Special Publication 800-63A, 800-63B, n.d.)
Passwords are commonly used at Anchor Hospital for user-level accounts, Web accounts, email accounts, screen-saver protection, voicemail protection, and local router logins. Since very few systems support single-use passwords (“one-time tokens”), everyone should know proper password selection criteria. Strong passwords have the following characteristics:
· Contain upper- and lower-case characters.
· Include digits and punctuation in addition to letters.
· Are at least eight alphanumeric characters long.
· Are not a single word in any language, slang, dialect, or jargon.
· Are not based on personal information such as family names.
Conversely, weak passwords contain fewer than eight characters, maybe common or familiar names (spelled forwards or backwards), include “Anchor Hospital, “sanjose,” “sanfran,” or any derivation. Do not use birthdays, alphabetical or numerical sequences, nor simply add a single symbol or character to a personal or departmental name or other common word.
Passwords should never be written down or stored online. Try to create memorable passwords based on a song title, affirmation, or other phrase that would not be obvious to others. For example, the phrase might be: "This May Be One Way To Remember" and the password could be: "TmB1w2R!" or "Tmb1W>r~" or some other variation. Do not use any of these examples as passwords.
DO NOT:
· reveal a password over the phone or email to anyone.
· discuss passwords in front of others or share a password with any supervisor.
· hint at your password.
· disclose a password on questionnaires or security forms.
· share a password with friends, family, or colleagues.
· use the “Remember password” feature at any time.
If someone demands a password, refer them to this document and/or the information security department. If you believe your password has been compromised, contact Anchor Hospital Information Security to change your password as soon as possible.
Note: Password “cracking” scans may be performed at any time by the IT department or its delegates; if a password is revealed by a scan, the user will be required to change it.
· If more than three (3) incorrect password attempts the system will time out the user for a determined time. After the determined time is complete and the user still enters the wrong password two (2) more times the username will be suspended, and the user will need to call IT security to verify their identity to unlock their account. (NIST Special Publication 800-63A, 800-63B, n.d.), (Poza, 2021)
Developers must ensure their programs include the following security precautions. Applications:
· should support authentication of individual users, not groups.
· should not store passwords in clear text or in any easily reversible form.
· should provide for some sort of role management, such that one user can take over the functions of another without having to know the other's password.
· should support TACACS+, RADIUS, and/or X.509 with LDAP security retrieval, wherever possible.
Remote access to the Anchor Hospital networks is to be controlled using a one-time password authentication or a public/private key system with a strong passphrase.
4.2.5 Passphrases
Passphrases are not the same as passwords. A passphrase is a longer version of a password and is therefore more secure. Because a passphrase is typically composed of multiple words, it is less vulnerable to "dictionary attacks."
A good passphrase is relatively long and contains a combination of upper and lowercase letters and numeric and punctuation characters. Following is an example of a strong passphrase:
"The*?#>*@TrafficOnThe101Was*&#!#ThisMorning"
All of the rules above that apply to passwords apply to passphrases.
Any employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.
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Date |
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7/20/09 |
IT4070-A-0001 |
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Initial doc. development |
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12/05/22 |
IT4070-A-0002 |
Revision |
Update Policy |
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Submitted by: _____Chris Misch____________________________ Date: December 7, 2022__
7.0 Resources
NIST Special Publication 800-63A. (n.d.). https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63a.html
Poza. (2021, January 22). NIST Password Guidelines and Best Practices for 2020. Auth0 - Blog. https://auth0.com/blog/dont-pass-on-the-new-nist-password-guidelines/
Cisa, R. C. D. (. |. (2020, March 11). NIST Password Policy: Best Practices To Follow. Linford & Company LLP. https://linfordco.com/blog/nist-password-policy-guidelines/