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Check: RHEL-09-411085

RHEL 9 STIG: RHEL-09-411085 (in versions v1 r3 through v1 r1)

Title

RHEL 9 must automatically lock an account when three unsuccessful logon attempts occur during a 15-minute time period. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

By limiting the number of failed logon attempts the risk of unauthorized system access via user password guessing, otherwise known as brute-forcing, is reduced. Limits are imposed by locking the account. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000329-GPOS-00128, SRG-OS-000021-GPOS-00005

Check Content

Verify RHEL 9 locks an account after three unsuccessful logon attempts within a period of 15 minutes with the following command: Note: If the system administrator demonstrates the use of an approved centralized account management method that locks an account after three unsuccessful logon attempts within a period of 15 minutes, this requirement is Not Applicable. $ grep fail_interval /etc/security/faillock.conf fail_interval = 900 If the "fail_interval" option is not set to "900" or less (but not "0"), the line is commented out, or the line is missing, this is a finding.

Fix Text

To configure RHEL 9 to lock out the "root" account after a number of incorrect login attempts within 15 minutes using "pam_faillock.so", enable the feature using the following command: $ authselect enable-feature with-faillock Then edit the "/etc/security/faillock.conf" file as follows: fail_interval = 900

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-258056r926155_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-258056

Group Title: SRG-OS-000329-GPOS-00128

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CCIs

CCIs tied to check.

Number	Definition
CCI-000044	The information system enforces the organization-defined limit of consecutive invalid logon attempts by a user during the organization-defined time period.
CCI-002238	The information system automatically locks the account or node for either an organization-defined time period, until the locked account or node is released by an administrator, or delays the next logon prompt according to the organization-defined delay algorithm when the maximum number of unsuccessful logon attempts is exceeded.

Controls

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

Number	Title
AC-7	Unsuccessful Logon Attempts