RHEL 9 must enforce a delay of at least four seconds between logon prompts following a failed logon attempt.
Severity | Group ID | Group Title | Version | Rule ID | Date | STIG Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| medium | V-258071 | SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00226 | RHEL-09-412050 | SV-258071r991588_rule | 2026-02-05 | 2 |
Description
Increasing the time between a failed authentication attempt and reprompting to enter credentials helps to slow a single-threaded brute force attack.
ℹ️ Check
Verify RHEL 9 enforces a delay of at least four seconds between console logon prompts following a failed logon attempt with the following command:
$ grep -i fail_delay /etc/login.defs
FAIL_DELAY 4
If the value of "FAIL_DELAY" is not set to "4" or greater, or the line is commented out, this is a finding.
✔️ Fix
Configure the RHEL 9 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