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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AC-2 | Account Management | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| AC-20 | Use of External Systems | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| AC-3 | Access Enforcement | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| AC-5 | Separation of Duties | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| AC-6 | Least Privilege | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| AC-7 | Unsuccessful Logon Attempts | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| CA-7 | Continuous Monitoring | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| CM-2 | Baseline Configuration | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| CM-6 | Configuration Settings | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| IA-11 | Re-authentication | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| IA-2 | Identification and Authentication (organizational Users) | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| IA-4 | Identifier Management | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| IA-5 | Authenticator Management | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| SI-4 | System Monitoring | Protects | T1110.003 | Password Spraying | |
| action.hacking.variety.Brute force | Brute force or password guessing attacks | related-to | T1110.003 | Brute Force: Password Spraying | |
| action.malware.variety.Brute force | Brute force attack | related-to | T1110.003 | Brute Force: Password Spraying | |
| 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
|
| 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
|
| 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
|
| 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
|
| 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
|
| 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
|
| 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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