Cognito Password Policy Weak

What this rule checks

Detects Cognito user pools with weak password policies.

How to fix it

1. 1Set minimum password length to at least 12 characters
2. 2Require uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols

import * as cognito from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-cognito';

// Weak password policy (short min length, symbols not required).
// MFA is ON so the MFA rule does not also fire.
new cognito.CfnUserPool(this, 'Pool', {
  mfaConfiguration: 'ON',
  enabledMfas: ['SOFTWARE_TOKEN_MFA'],
  policies: {
    passwordPolicy: {
      minimumLength: 8,
      requireLowercase: true,
      requireUppercase: true,
      requireNumbers: true,
      requireSymbols: false,
    },
  },
});

import * as cognito from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-cognito';

// Strong password policy (>=12 chars, every complexity flag on).
// MFA is ON so the MFA rule does not fire either.
new cognito.CfnUserPool(this, 'Pool', {
  mfaConfiguration: 'ON',
  enabledMfas: ['SOFTWARE_TOKEN_MFA'],
  policies: {
    passwordPolicy: {
      minimumLength: 12,
      requireLowercase: true,
      requireUppercase: true,
      requireNumbers: true,
      requireSymbols: true,
    },
  },
});

CDK Insights pinpoints the exact file and line in your CDK source for every finding, so you can jump straight to the fix.

Affected resource types

Intentional? Suppress this finding

Sometimes a flag is deliberate — a genuinely public endpoint, say. You can dismiss cognito-password-policy-weak and the reason is kept in the report, not silently hidden.

In .cdk-insights.json:

{
  "ignoreRules": [
    { "id": "cognito-password-policy-weak", "reason": "Why this is intentional" }
  ]
}

Or inline in your CDK code:

Validations.of(scope).acknowledge({
  id: 'cdk-insights::cognito-password-policy-weak',
  reason: 'Why this is intentional',
});

Use the rule ID cognito-password-policy-weak shown above — not the CDK-* ID from SARIF / GitHub code scanning. To dismiss every finding on one construct instead, use ignorePaths. Suppression docs →

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