RHEL 8 must include root when automatically locking an account until the locked account is released by an administrator when three unsuccessful logon attempts occur during a 15-minute time period.
Overview
| Finding ID | Version | Rule ID | IA Controls | Severity |
| V-230345 | RHEL-08-020023 | SV-230345r1017157_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. In RHEL 8.2 the "/etc/security/faillock.conf" file was incorporated to centralize the configuration of the pam_faillock.so module. Also introduced is a "local_users_only" option that will only track failed user authentication attempts for local users in /etc/passwd and ignore centralized (AD, IdM, LDAP, etc.) users to allow the centralized platform to solely manage user lockout. From "faillock.conf" man pages: Note that the default directory that "pam_faillock" uses is usually cleared on system boot so the access will be reenabled after system reboot. If that is undesirable a different tally directory must be set with the "dir" option. Satisfies: SRG-OS-000021-GPOS-00005, SRG-OS-000329-GPOS-00128 |
| STIG | Date |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Security Technical Implementation Guide | 2024-11-25 |
Details
| Check Text (C-33014r743982_chk) |
| Note: This check applies to RHEL versions 8.2 or newer, if the system is RHEL version 8.0 or 8.1, this check is not applicable. Verify the "/etc/security/faillock.conf" file is configured to log user name information when unsuccessful logon attempts occur: $ sudo grep even_deny_root /etc/security/faillock.conf even_deny_root If the "even_deny_root" option is not set, is missing or commented out, this is a finding. |
| Fix Text (F-32989r743983_fix) |
| Configure the operating system to include root when locking an account after three unsuccessful logon attempts occur in 15 minutes. Add/Modify the "/etc/security/faillock.conf" file to match the following line: even_deny_root |