Title

Number of allowed bad-logon attempts does not meet minimum requirements. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

The account lockout feature, when enabled, prevents brute-force password attacks on the system. The higher this value is, the less effective the account lockout feature will be in protecting the local system. The number of bad logon attempts should be reasonably small to minimize the possibility of a successful password attack, while allowing for honest errors made during a normal user logon.

Check Content

Analyze the system using the Security Configuration and Analysis snap-in. Expand the Security Configuration and Analysis tree view. Navigate to Account Policies -> Account Lockout Policy. If the “Account lockout threshold” is "0" or more than three attempts, then this is a finding.

Fix Text

Configure the system to lock out an account after three invalid logon attempts.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-28986r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-1097

Group Title: Bad Logon Attempts

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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