diff --git a/tempest/config.py b/tempest/config.py
index 4ee4669..19c46f6 100644
--- a/tempest/config.py
+++ b/tempest/config.py
@@ -996,7 +996,7 @@
                help="SSH verification in tests is skipped"
                     "for matching images"),
     cfg.StrOpt('ssh_user_regex',
-               default="[[\"^.*[Cc]irros.*$\", \"root\"]]",
+               default="[[\"^.*[Cc]irros.*$\", \"cirros\"]]",
                help="List of user mapped to regex "
                     "to matching image names."),
 ]