Title

RHEL 9 must ensure account lockouts persist. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Having lockouts persist across reboots ensures that account is only unlocked by an administrator. If the lockouts did not persist across reboots, an attacker could simply reboot the system to continue brute force attacks against the accounts on the system.

Check Content

Verify the "/etc/security/faillock.conf" file is configured use a nondefault faillock directory to ensure contents persist after reboot with the following command: $ grep 'dir =' /etc/security/faillock.conf dir = /var/log/faillock If the "dir" option is not set to a nondefault documented tally log directory, is missing or commented out, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure RHEL 9 maintain the contents of the faillock directory after a reboot. Add/modify the "/etc/security/faillock.conf" file to match the following line: dir = /var/log/faillock

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-258060r926167_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-258060

Group Title: SRG-OS-000021-GPOS-00005

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.