AZLX-23-002465 - Amazon Linux 2023 must automatically lock an account until the locked account is released by an administrator when three unsuccessful logon attempts in 15 minutes occur.

Information

By limiting the number of failed logon attempts, the risk of unauthorized system access via user password guessing, otherwise known as brute-forcing, is reduced. Limits are imposed by locking the account.

Solution

Configure Amazon Linux 2023 to automatically lock an account after three unsuccessful logon attempts in 15-minutes.

First, ensure that the system is configured with authselect, i.e., using sssd profiles:

$ sudo authselect select sssd [--force]

Then, enable the faillock feature:

$ sudo authselect enable-feature with-faillock

Then edit the "/etc/security/faillock.conf" file as follows:

fail_interval = 900

See Also

https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_Amazon_Linux_2023_V1R2_STIG.zip