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V-258802

CAT II (Medium)

The Photon operating system must enforce the limit of three consecutive invalid logon attempts by a user during a 15-minute time period.

Rule ID

SV-258802r933467_rule

STIG

VMware vSphere 8.0 vCenter Appliance Photon OS 4.0 Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V1R1

CCIs

CCI-000044

Discussion

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.

Check Content

At the command line, run the following commands to verify accounts are locked after three consecutive invalid logon attempts by a user during a 15-minute time period:

# grep '^deny =' /etc/security/faillock.conf

Example result:

deny = 3

If the "deny" option is not set to "3" or less (but not "0"), is missing or commented out, this is a finding.

# grep '^fail_interval =' /etc/security/faillock.conf

Example result:

fail_interval = 900

If the "fail_interval" option is not set to "900" or more, is missing or commented out, this is a finding.

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

Fix Text

Navigate to and open:

/etc/security/faillock.conf

Add or update the following lines:

deny = 3
fail_interval = 900

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.