STIGUI
V-274144CAT II — Medium severitySV-274144r1120420_rule

Amazon Linux 2023 must enforce a delay of at least four seconds between logon prompts following a failed logon attempt.

Rule version AZLX-23-002405 · STIG v1 · 2026-08-20

Discussion

Increasing the time between a failed authentication attempt and re-prompting to enter credentials helps to slow a single-threaded brute force attack.

Check

Verify Amazon Linux 2023 enforces a delay of at least four seconds between console logon prompts following a failed logon attempt with the following command:

$ sudo grep -i fail_delay /etc/login.defs FAIL_DELAY 4

If the value of "FAIL_DELAY" is not set to "4" or greater, the line is commented out, or the line is missing, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure Amazon Linux 2023 to enforce a delay of at least four seconds between logon prompts following a failed console logon attempt.

Modify the "/etc/login.defs" file to set the "FAIL_DELAY" parameter to "4" or greater:

FAIL_DELAY 4

Identifiers

Group ID
V-274144
Group title
SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00226
Rule ID
SV-274144r1120420_rule
Check ID
C-78235r1120418_chk
Fix ID
F-78140r1120419_fix