TOSS must automatically lock an account until the locked account is released by an administrator when three unsuccessful logon attempts in 15 minutes occur.
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. Due to the scale of HPC systems and the number of users in question, it is impractical to require an administrator to unlock the user's account manually. Strong controls around automatic lock out, and typical (though not universal) use of strong MFA to enter an HPC system mitigate the concerns of a brute force attack being successful.</VulnDiscussion><FalsePositives></FalsePositives><FalseNegatives></FalseNegatives><Documentable>false</Documentable><Mitigations></Mitigations><SeverityOverrideGuidance></SeverityOverrideGuidance><PotentialImpacts></PotentialImpacts><ThirdPartyTools></ThirdPartyTools><MitigationControl></MitigationControl><Responsibility></Responsibility><IAControls></IAControls>
- ID
- SV-252957r958736_rule
- Severity
- Medium
- References
- Updated
Remediation - Manual Procedure
Configure the operating system to lock an account until released by an administrator when three unsuccessful logon attempts occur in 15 minutes.
Add and/or 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
auth required pam_faillock.so authfail