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The SUSE operating system 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 user name 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. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000021-GPOS-00005, SRG-OS-000329-GPOS-00128</VulnDiscussion><FalsePositives></FalsePositives><FalseNegatives></FalseNegatives><Documentable>false</Documentable><Mitigations></Mitigations><SeverityOverrideGuidance></SeverityOverrideGuidance><PotentialImpacts></PotentialImpacts><ThirdPartyTools></ThirdPartyTools><MitigationControl></MitigationControl><Responsibility></Responsibility><IAControls></IAControls>

ID
SV-234867r958388_rule
Severity
Medium
References
Updated



Remediation - Manual Procedure

Configure the operating system to lock an account when three unsuccessful access attempts occur.

Modify the first line of the auth section "/etc/pam.d/common-auth" file to match the following lines:

auth required pam_tally2.so onerr=fail silent audit deny=3