| ID | Name |
|---|---|
| T1110.001 | Password Guessing |
| T1110.002 | Password Cracking |
| T1110.003 | Password Spraying |
| T1110.004 | Credential Stuffing |
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. [1]
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.[2]
In default environments, LDAP and Kerberos connection attempts are less likely to trigger events over SMB, which creates Windows "logon failure" event ID 4625.
| ID | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| G0007 | APT28 |
APT28 has used a brute-force/password-spray tooling that operated in two modes: in password-spraying mode it conducted approximately four authentication attempts per hour per targeted account over the course of several days or weeks.[3][4] APT28 has also used a Kubernetes cluster to conduct distributed, large-scale password spray attacks.[5] |
| G0016 | APT29 |
APT29 has conducted brute force password spray attacks.[6][7] |
| G0064 | APT33 |
APT33 has used password spraying to gain access to target systems.[8][9] |
| S0606 | Bad Rabbit |
Bad Rabbit’s |
| G0114 | Chimera |
Chimera has used multiple password spraying attacks against victim's remote services to obtain valid user and administrator accounts.[11] |
| S0488 | CrackMapExec |
CrackMapExec can brute force credential authentication by using a supplied list of usernames and a single password.[12] |
| G0032 | Lazarus Group |
Lazarus Group malware attempts to connect to Windows shares for lateral movement by using a generated list of usernames, which center around permutations of the username Administrator, and weak passwords.[13][14] |
| G0077 | Leafminer |
Leafminer used a tool called Total SMB BruteForcer to perform internal password spraying.[15] |
| S0362 | Linux Rabbit |
Linux Rabbit brute forces SSH passwords in order to attempt to gain access and install its malware onto the server. [16] |
| S0413 | MailSniper |
MailSniper can be used for password spraying against Exchange and Office 365.[17] |
| G0034 | Sandworm Team |
Sandworm Team has used a script to attempt RPC authentication against a number of hosts.[18] |
| G0122 | Silent Librarian |
Silent Librarian has used collected lists of names and e-mail accounts to use in password spraying attacks against private sector targets.[19] |
| ID | Mitigation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| M1036 | Account Use Policies |
Set account lockout policies after a certain number of failed login attempts to prevent passwords from being guessed. Too strict a policy may create a denial of service condition and render environments un-usable, with all accounts used in the brute force being locked-out. |
| M1032 | Multi-factor Authentication |
Use multi-factor authentication. Where possible, also enable multi-factor authentication on externally facing services. |
| M1027 | Password Policies |
Refer to NIST guidelines when creating password policies. [20] |
| ID | Data Source | Data Component |
|---|---|---|
| DS0015 | Application Log | Application Log Content |
| DS0002 | User Account | User Account Authentication |
Monitor authentication logs for system and application login failures of Valid Accounts. Specifically, monitor for many failed authentication attempts across various accounts that may result from password spraying attempts.
Consider the following event IDs:[21]