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SLEM 5 must lock an account after three consecutive invalid access attempts.

An XCCDF Rule

Description

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

ID
SV-261364r996863_rule
Severity
Medium
References
Updated



Remediation - 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: