Vulnerability 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