Adversaries may use a single or small list of commonly used passwords against many different accounts to attempt to acquire valid account credentials. Password spraying uses one password (e.g. 'Password01'), or a small list of commonly used passwords, that may match the complexity policy of the domain. Logins are attempted with that password against many different accounts on a network to avoid account lockouts that would normally occur when brute forcing a single account with many passwords. (Citation: BlackHillsInfosec Password Spraying)
Typically, management services over commonly used ports are used when password spraying. Commonly targeted services include the following:
In addition to management services, adversaries may "target single sign-on (SSO) and cloud-based applications utilizing federated authentication protocols," as well as externally facing email applications, such as Office 365.(Citation: US-CERT TA18-068A 2018)
In default environments, LDAP and Kerberos connection attempts are less likely to trigger events over SMB, which creates Windows "logon failure" event ID 4625.
View in MITRE ATT&CK®| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PR.IR-01.05 | Remote access protection | Mitigates | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This diagnostic statement implements security controls and restrictions for remote user access to systems. Remote user access control involves managing and securing how users remotely access systems, such as through encrypted connections and account use policies, which help prevent adversary access.
References
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| PR.AA-05.04 | Third-party access management | Mitigates | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This diagnostic statement includes implementation of controls for third-party access to an organization’s systems. Enforcing third-party account use policies to include account lockout policies after a certain number of failed login attempts mitigates the risk of brute-force attacks.
References
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| PR.AA-05.02 | Privileged system access | Mitigates | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Password Spraying through the use of privileged account management and the use of multi-factor authentication.
References
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| PR.AA-02.01 | Authentication of identity | Mitigates | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This diagnostic statement provides protection from Brute Force through the implementation of authentication controls and privileged account management controls to limit credential access. Employing limitations to specific accounts, access control mechanisms, and auditing the attribution logs provides protection against adversaries attempting to brute force credentials.
References
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| PR.PS-01.07 | Cryptographic keys and certificates | Mitigates | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Brute Force through the use of revocation of keys and key management. Employing limitations to specific accounts along with access control mechanisms provides protection against adversaries attempting to brute force credentials.
References
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| PR.AA-03.01 | Authentication requirements | Mitigates | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This diagnostic statement describes how the organization implement appropriate authentication requirements, including selecting mechanisms based on risk, utilizing multi-factor authentication where necessary, and safeguarding the storage of authenticators like pins and passwords to protect sensitive access credentials.
References
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| PR.AA-01.01 | Identity and credential management | Mitigates | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Password Spraying through the use of hardened access control policies, secure defaults, password complexity requirements, multifactor authentication requirements, and removal of terminated accounts.
References
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| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| action.malware.variety.C2 | Malware creates Command and Control capability for malware. Child of 'Backdoor or C2'. | related-to | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| advanced_threat_protection_for_azure_sql_database | Advanced Threat Protection for Azure SQL Database | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This control may alert on repeated sign in attempts to the resource and successful logins from a suspicious location, IP address, or a user that does not commonly log in to the resource. Because this control is specific to Azure database offerings, the detection coverage is Minimal.
References
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| ai_security_recommendations | Microsoft Defender for Cloud: AI Security Recommendations | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This control's "Authentication to Linux machines should require SSH keys" can obviate SSH Brute Force password attacks. Because this is specific to Linux, the coverage score is Minimal leading to an overall Minimal score.
References
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| alerts_for_azure_network_layer | Alerts for Azure Network Layer | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This control can identify multiple connection attempts by external IPs, which may be indicative of Brute Force attempts, though not T1110.002, which is performed offline.
References
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| alerts_for_linux_machines | Alerts for Linux Machines | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This control may alert on multiple successful and failed brute force attempts against SSH. There are no alerts for other methods of logging into Linux machines.
References
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| alerts_for_windows_machines | Alerts for Windows Machines | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This control may detect successful and failed brute force attempts with logic that factors the IP, time between attempts, and other suspicious activity. The following alerts may be generated: "A logon from a malicious IP has been detected", "A logon from a malicious IP has been detected. [seen multiple times]", "Successful brute force attack", "Suspicious authentication activity".
References
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| azure_policy | Azure Policy | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This control may provide recommendations to implement multi-factor authentication, implement password security policies, and replacing password authentication with more secure authentication methods. This control can affect Azure, Azure cloud application, and endpoint credentials.
References
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| just-in-time_vm_access | Microsoft Defender for Cloud: Just-in-Time VM Access | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This control can be configured to completely block inbound access to selected ports until access is requested. This prevents any attempt at brute forcing a protocol, such as RDP or SSH, unless the attacker has the credentials and permissions to request such access. Even if permission has been granted to an authorized user to access the virtual machine, a list of authorized IP addresses for that access can be configured.
References
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| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| advanced_protection_program | Advanced Protection Program | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
Advanced Protection Program enables the use of a security key for multi-factor authentication. This provides significant protection against Brute Force techniques attempting to gain access to accounts.
References
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| cloud_identity | Cloud Identity | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This control may mitigate brute force attacks by enforcing multi-factor authentication, enforcing strong password policies, and rotating credentials periodically. These recommendations are IAM best practices but must be explicitly implemented by a cloud administrator.
References
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| identity_platform | Identity Platform | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) methods, such as SMS, can also be used to help protect user accounts from phishing attacks. MFA provides significant protection against password compromises, requiring the adversary to complete an additional authentication method before their access is permitted.
References
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| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| amazon_cognito | Amazon Cognito | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
MFA can significantly reduce the impact of a password compromise, requiring the adversary to complete an additional authentication method before their access is permitted.
References
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| amazon_guardduty | Amazon GuardDuty | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
Due to the detection being limited to a specific set of application protocols, its coverage is Minimal resulting in a Minimal score.
References
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| amazon_inspector | Amazon Inspector | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
The Amazon Inspector Best Practices assessment package can detect security control settings related to authentication and password policies on Linux endpoints. Specific security controls it can assess include "Disable password authentication over SSH", "Configure password maximum age", "Configure password minimum length", and "Configure password complexity" all of which impact the ability to brute force a password. This information can be used identify insecure configurations and harden the endpoints. Amazon Inspector does not directly protect against brute force attacks. Given Amazon Inspector can only assess these security controls on Linux platforms (although it also supports Windows), the coverage score is Minimal leading to an overall Minimal score.
References
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| aws_config | AWS Config | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
The following AWS Config managed rules can identify configuration problems that should be fixed in order to ensure multi-factor authentication (MFA) is enabled properly, which can significantly impede brute force authentication attempts by requiring adversaries to provide a second form of authentication even if they succeed in brute forcing a password via one of these sub-techniques: "iam-user-mfa-enabled", "mfa-enabled-for-iam-console-access", "root-account-hardware-mfa-enabled", and "root-account-mfa-enabled".
The "iam-password-policy" managed rule can identify insufficient password requirements that should be fixed in order to make brute force authentication more difficult by increasing the complexity of user passwords and decreasing the amount of time before they are rotated, giving adversaries less time to brute force passwords and making it more time consuming and resource intensive to do so. This is especially important in the case of Password Cracking, since adversaries in possession of password hashes may be able to recover usable credentials more quickly and do so without generating detectable noise via invalid login attempts.
All of these controls are run periodically, but implemented policies are enforced continuously once set and coverage factor is significant, resulting in an overall score of Significant.
References
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| aws_identity_and_access_management | AWS Identity and Access Management | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This control may mitigate brute force attacks by enforcing multi-factor authentication, enforcing strong password policies, and rotating credentials periodically. These recommendations are IAM best practices but must be explicitly implemented by a cloud administrator.
References
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| aws_security_hub | AWS Security Hub | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
AWS Security Hub performs a check from the AWS Foundations CIS Benchmark that, if implemented, would help towards detecting the brute forcing of accounts. AWS Security Hub provides this detection with the following checks.
3.6 Ensure a log metric filter and alarm exist for AWS Management Console authentication failures
This is scored as Minimal because it only applies to the AWS Management Console and not other access mechanisms (e.g., CLI, SDK, etc.). Furthermore, it does not detect brute-forcing methods for other components such as EC2 instances.
References
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| aws_single_sign-on | AWS Single Sign-On | technique_scores | T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
Comments
This control may protect against brute force techniques by enabling multi-factor authentication. All accounts that can be replace with single sign-on can benefit from a unified multi-factor authentication requirement.
References
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