STIGUI
V-281212CAT II — Medium severitySV-281212r1166588_rule

RHEL 10 must configure the use of the pam_faillock.so module in the "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" file.

Rule version RHEL-10-600600 · STIG v1 · 2026-09-17

Discussion

If the pam_faillock.so module is not loaded, the system will not correctly lock out accounts to prevent password guessing attacks.

Check

Verify RHEL 10 includes the use of the pam_faillock.so module in the "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" file:

$ sudo grep pam_faillock.so /etc/pam.d/system-auth auth required pam_faillock.so preauth auth required pam_faillock.so authfail account required pam_faillock.so

If the pam_faillock.so module is not present in the "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" file with the "preauth" line listed before pam_unix.so, this is a finding.

If the system administrator can demonstrate that the required configuration is contained in a PAM configuration file included or substacked from the "system-auth" file, this is not a finding.

Fix

Configure RHEL 10 to include the use of the pam_faillock.so module in the "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" file.

If PAM is managed with authselect, enable the feature with the following command:

$ sudo authselect enable-feature with-faillock

Otherwise, add/modify the appropriate sections of the "/etc/pam.d/system-auth" file to match the following lines:

Note: The "preauth" line must be listed before pam_unix.so.

auth required pam_faillock.so preauth auth required pam_faillock.so authfail account required pam_faillock.so

Identifiers

Group ID
V-281212
Group title
SRG-OS-000021-GPOS-00005
Rule ID
SV-281212r1166588_rule
Check ID
C-85773r1166586_chk
Fix ID
F-85678r1166587_fix