STIGUI
V-281197CAT II — Medium severitySV-281197r1166543_rule

RHEL 10 must maintain an account lock until the locked account is released by an administrator.

Rule version RHEL-10-600425 · STIG v1 · 2026-09-17

Discussion

By limiting the number of failed login 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.

Satisfies: SRG-OS-000329-GPOS-00128, SRG-OS-000021-GPOS-00005

Check

Verify RHEL 10 is configured to lock an account after three unsuccessful login attempts until released by an administrator with the following command:

$ sudo grep 'unlock_time =' /etc/security/faillock.conf unlock_time = 0

If the "unlock_time" option is not set to "0", or the line is missing or commented out, this is a finding.

Fix

Configure RHEL 10 to lock an account after three unsuccessful login attempts until released by an administrator with the following command:

$ authselect enable-feature with-faillock

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

unlock_time = 0

Identifiers

Group ID
V-281197
Group title
SRG-OS-000329-GPOS-00128
Rule ID
SV-281197r1166543_rule
Check ID
C-85758r1166541_chk
Fix ID
F-85663r1166542_fix