The operating system must enforce the limit of three consecutive invalid logon attempts by a user during a 15 minute time period.

From Apple OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) Workstation Security Technical Implementation Guide

Associated with: CCI-002238

SV-72897r1_rule The operating system must enforce the limit of three consecutive invalid logon attempts by a user during a 15 minute time period.

Vulnerability discussion

Setting a lockout expiration of 15 minutes is an effective deterrent against brute forcing that also makes allowances for legitimate mistakes by users.

Check content

To check if the password policy is configured to disable an account after 3 unsuccessful login attempts, run the following command: sudo pwpolicy getglobalpolicy | tr ' ' '\n' | grep 'maxFailedLoginAttempts' If the result is not 'maxFailedLoginAttempts=3' and password policy is not controlled by a directory server, this is a finding.

Fix text

To set the password policy, run the following command: sudo pwpolicy setglobalpolicy 'maxFailedLoginAttempts=3'

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