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RHEL 9 must automatically lock the root account until the root account is released by an administrator when three unsuccessful logon attempts occur during a 15-minute time period.

An XCCDF Rule

Description

By limiting the number of failed logon attempts, the risk of unauthorized system access via user password guessing, also known as brute-forcing, is reduced. Limits are imposed by locking the account. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000329-GPOS-00128, SRG-OS-000021-GPOS-00005

ID
SV-258055r1045140_rule
Version
RHEL-09-411080
Severity
Medium
References
Updated

Remediation Templates

A Manual Procedure

To configure RHEL 9 to lock out the "root" account after a number of incorrect logon attempts using "pam_faillock.so", first enable the feature using the following command:
 
$ sudo authselect enable-feature with-faillock  

Edit the "/etc/security/faillock.conf" by uncommenting or adding the following line:
 
even_deny_root