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V-258882

CAT II (Medium)

The Photon operating system must configure Secure Shell (SSH) to limit the number of allowed login attempts per connection.

Rule ID

SV-258882r933707_rule

STIG

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

Version

V1R1

CCIs

CCI-000366

Discussion

By setting the login attempt limit to a low value, an attacker will be forced to reconnect frequently, which severely limits the speed and effectiveness of brute-force attacks.

Check Content

At the command line, run the following command to verify the running configuration of sshd:

# sshd -T|&grep -i MaxAuthTries

Example result:

maxauthtries 6

If "MaxAuthTries" is not set to "6", this is a finding.

Fix Text

Navigate to and open:

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

Ensure the "MaxAuthTries" line is uncommented and set to the following:

MaxAuthTries 6

At the command line, run the following command:

# systemctl restart sshd.service