The Photon operating system must automatically lock an account until the locked account is released by an administrator when three unsuccessful logon attempts in 15 minutes occur.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-258843	PHTN-40-000108	SV-258843r933590_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-forcing, is reduced. Limits are imposed by locking the account.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 8.0 vCenter Appliance Photon OS 4.0 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2023-10-29

Details

Check Text ( C-62583r933588_chk )
At the command line, run the following commands to verify accounts are locked until the locked account is released by an administrator when three unsuccessful logon attempts in 15 minutes are made: # grep '^unlock_time =' /etc/security/faillock.conf Example result: unlock_time = 0 If the "unlock_time" option is not set to "0", is missing or commented out, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-62492r933589_fix)
Navigate to and open: /etc/security/faillock.conf Add or update the following lines: unlock_time = 0 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.