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.

Documentable No

Rule ID SV-258055r1045140_rule

CCI References

CCI-000044CCI-002238

Discussion

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

Check Procedure

Verify RHEL 9 is configured to lock the root account after three unsuccessful logon attempts with the command:

$ sudo grep even_deny_root /etc/security/faillock.conf

even_deny_root

If the "even_deny_root" option is not set or is missing or commented out, this is a finding.

Fix Action

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