The Photon operating system must persist lockouts between system reboots.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-258862	PHTN-40-000196	SV-258862r933647_rule		Medium

Description
By limiting the number of failed logon attempts, the risk of unauthorized system access via user password guessing, otherwise known as brute-force attacks, is reduced. Limits are imposed by locking the account. By default, account lockout information is stored under /var/run/faillock and is not persistent between reboots.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 8.0 vCenter Appliance Photon OS 4.0 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2023-10-29

Details

Check Text ( C-62602r933645_chk )
At the command line, run the following command to verify account locking persists lockouts between system reboots: # grep '^dir' /etc/security/faillock.conf Example result: dir = /var/log/faillock If the "dir" option is set to "/var/run/faillock", this is a finding. If the "dir" option is not set to a persistent documented faillock directory, is missing or commented out, this is a finding. Note: If faillock.conf is not used to configure pam_faillock.so then these options may be specified on the faillock lines in the system-auth and system-account files.

Check Text ( C-62602r933645_chk )

At the command line, run the following command to verify account locking persists lockouts between system reboots:

# grep '^dir' /etc/security/faillock.conf

Example result:

dir = /var/log/faillock

If the "dir" option is set to "/var/run/faillock", this is a finding.
If the "dir" option is not set to a persistent documented faillock directory, is missing or commented out, this is a finding.

Note: If faillock.conf is not used to configure pam_faillock.so then these options may be specified on the faillock lines in the system-auth and system-account files.

Fix Text (F-62511r933646_fix)
Navigate to and open: /etc/security/faillock.conf Add or update the following lines: dir = /var/log/faillock Note: On vCenter appliances, the equivalent file must be edited under "/etc/applmgmt/appliance", if one exists, for the changes to persist after a reboot.