Brute Force: Password Spraying T1110.003
Tactic: Credential Access
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.
Events covered
10 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.
Authoring guide
Patterns shared across the 81 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. The catalog normalizes field names across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.
Fields filtered most (119 distinct)
The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.
Top indicator values (238 distinct)
Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that use it.
Exclusions (75 distinct)
Field/operator/value combinations excluded by rules under this technique (top-level not() clauses), sorted by how many rules exclude each. These are the false-positive paths the community has learned to filter out. A new rule that ignores the high-count entries here will likely fire on the same noisy paths. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that exclude it.
Rules under this technique
Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.
Sigma 1 rule
Elastic 26 rules
- Attempts to Brute Force an Okta User Account
- Entra ID Excessive Account Lockouts Detected
- Entra ID Protection - Risk Detection - Sign-in Risk
- Entra ID Protection - Risk Detection - User Risk
- Entra ID Sign-in Brute Force Attempted (Microsoft 365)
- Entra ID Sign-in TeamFiltration User-Agent Detected
- Entra ID User Sign-in Brute Force Attempted
- Entra ID User Sign-in with Unusual Authentication Type
- M365 Entra ID Risk Detection Signal
- M365 Identity User Account Lockouts
- M365 Identity User Brute Force Attempted
- Multiple Logon Failure Followed by Logon Success
- Multiple Logon Failure from the same Source Address
- Multiple Okta User Auth Events with Same Device Token Hash Behind a Proxy
- Multiple Okta User Authentication Events with Same Device Token Hash
- Okta Successful Login After Credential Attack
- Potential External Linux SSH Brute Force Detected
- Potential Internal Linux SSH Brute Force Detected
- Potential Okta Password Spray (Multi-Source)
- Potential Okta Password Spray (Single Source)
- Potential Password Spraying Attack via SSH
- Potential Successful SSH Brute Force Attack
- Privileged Accounts Brute Force
- Spike in Failed Logon Events
- Spike in Logon Events
- Spike in Successful Logon Events from a Source IP
Splunk 42 rules
- AWS High Number Of Failed Authentications From Ip
- AWS Multiple Users Failing To Authenticate From Ip
- AWS Unusual Number of Failed Authentications From Ip
- Azure Active Directory High Risk Sign-in
- Azure AD High Number Of Failed Authentications From Ip
- Azure AD Multi-Source Failed Authentications Spike
- Azure AD Multiple Users Failing To Authenticate From Ip
- Azure AD Successful Authentication From Different Ips
- Azure AD Unusual Number of Failed Authentications From Ip
- Cisco ASA - User Account Lockout Threshold Exceeded
- Detect Distributed Password Spray Attempts
- Detect Password Spray Attack Behavior From Source
- Detect Password Spray Attack Behavior On User
- Detect Password Spray Attempts
- GCP Multiple Users Failing To Authenticate From Ip
- GCP Unusual Number of Failed Authentications From Ip
- Multiple Failed Network Logon Attempts from Host (Windows Event Log)
- O365 Multi-Source Failed Authentications Spike
- O365 Multiple Users Failing To Authenticate From Ip
- Okta Multiple Users Failing To Authenticate From Ip
- Password Spraying Windows (Windows Event Log)
- Windows Multiple Disabled Users Failed To Authenticate Wth Kerberos
- Windows Multiple Invalid Users Fail To Authenticate Using Kerberos
- Windows Multiple Invalid Users Failed To Authenticate Using NTLM
- Windows Multiple NTLM Null Domain Authentications
- Windows Multiple Users Fail To Authenticate Wth ExplicitCredentials
- Windows Multiple Users Failed To Authenticate From Host Using NTLM
- Windows Multiple Users Failed To Authenticate From Process
- Windows Multiple Users Failed To Authenticate Using Kerberos
- Windows Multiple Users Remotely Failed To Authenticate From Host
- Windows Unusual Count Of Disabled Users Failed Auth Using Kerberos
- Windows Unusual Count Of Invalid Users Fail To Auth Using Kerberos
- Windows Unusual Count Of Invalid Users Failed To Auth Using NTLM
- Windows Unusual Count Of Users Fail To Auth Wth ExplicitCredentials
- Windows Unusual Count Of Users Failed To Auth Using Kerberos
- Windows Unusual Count Of Users Failed To Authenticate From Process
- Windows Unusual Count Of Users Failed To Authenticate Using NTLM
- Windows Unusual Count Of Users Remotely Failed To Auth From Host
- Windows Unusual NTLM Authentication Destinations By Source
- Windows Unusual NTLM Authentication Destinations By User
- Windows Unusual NTLM Authentication Users By Destination
- Windows Unusual NTLM Authentication Users By Source
Kusto 7 rules
- Alsid Password Spraying
- Cross-Cloud Unauthorized Credential Access Detection From AWS RDS Login
- Password Spraying
- Potential Password Spray Attack
- Tenable.ad Password Spraying
- TIE Password Spraying
- Unauthorized user access across AWS and Azure