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The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured to lock accounts for a minimum of 15 minutes after three unsuccessful logon attempts within a 15-minute timeframe.

An XCCDF Rule

Description

<VulnDiscussion>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</VulnDiscussion><FalsePositives></FalsePositives><FalseNegatives></FalseNegatives><Documentable>false</Documentable><Mitigations></Mitigations><SeverityOverrideGuidance></SeverityOverrideGuidance><PotentialImpacts></PotentialImpacts><ThirdPartyTools></ThirdPartyTools><MitigationControl></MitigationControl><Responsibility></Responsibility><IAControls></IAControls>

ID
SV-204427r880842_rule
Severity
Medium
References
Updated



Remediation - Manual Procedure

Configure the operating system to lock an account for the maximum period when three unsuccessful logon attempts in 15 minutes are made.

Add/Modify the appropriate sections of the "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" and "/etc/pam.d/password-auth" files to match the following lines:

auth        required      pam_faillock.so preauth silent audit deny=3 even_deny_root fail_interval=900 unlock_time=900
auth        sufficient    pam_unix.so try_first_pass