SLEM 5 must lock an account after three consecutive invalid access attempts.
An XCCDF Rule
Description
By limiting the number of failed access 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. The pam_tally2.so module maintains a count of attempted accesses. This includes username entry into a logon field as well as password entry. With counting access attempts, it is possible to lock an account without presenting a password into the password field. This should be taken into consideration as it poses as an avenue for denial of service (DoS).
- ID
- SV-261364r996863_rule
- Version
- SLEM-05-412020
- Severity
- Medium
- References
- Updated
Remediation Templates
A Manual Procedure
Configure SLEM 5 to lock an account when three unsuccessful access attempts occur.
Note: Manual changes to the listed files may be overwritten by the "pam-config" program. The "pam-config" program should not be used to update the configurations listed in this requirement.
Add or modify the first line of the auth section in the "/etc/pam.d/common-auth" file to match the following line: