STIGQter: STIG Summary: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Security Technical Implementation Guide Version: 2 Release: 9 Benchmark Date: 01 Jul 2026:

RHEL 9 must automatically lock the root account until the root account is released by an administrator when three unsuccessful logon attempts occur during a 15-minute time period.

DISA Rule

SV-258055r1045140_rule

Vulnerability Number

V-258055

Group Title

SRG-OS-000329-GPOS-00128

Rule Version

RHEL-09-411080

Severity

CAT II

CCI(s)

• CCI-000044 - Enforce the organization-defined limit of consecutive invalid logon attempts by a user during the organization-defined time period.
• CCI-002238 - Automatically lock the account or node for either an organization-defined time period, until the locked account or node is released by an administrator, or delays the next logon prompt according to the organization-defined delay algorithm when the maximum number of unsuccessful logon attempts is exceeded.

Weight

10

Fix Recommendation

To configure RHEL 9 to lock out the "root" account after a number of incorrect logon attempts using "pam_faillock.so", first enable the feature using the following command:

$ sudo authselect enable-feature with-faillock

Edit the "/etc/security/faillock.conf" by uncommenting or adding the following line:

even_deny_root

Check Contents

Verify RHEL 9 is configured to lock the root account after three unsuccessful logon attempts with the command:

$ sudo grep even_deny_root /etc/security/faillock.conf

even_deny_root

If the "even_deny_root" option is not set or is missing or commented out, this is a finding.

Vulnerability Number

V-258055

Documentable

False

Rule Version

RHEL-09-411080

Severity Override Guidance

Verify RHEL 9 is configured to lock the root account after three unsuccessful logon attempts with the command:

$ sudo grep even_deny_root /etc/security/faillock.conf

even_deny_root

If the "even_deny_root" option is not set or is missing or commented out, this is a finding.

Check Content Reference

M

Target Key

5551