Potential Password Spray Attack (Uses Authentication Normalization)

Severity: medium
Time window: 5m
Group by: SrcDvcIpAddr, SrcGeoCountry
Author: Ofer Shezaf
Source: github.com/Azure/Azure-Sentinel

This query searches for failed attempts to log in from more than 15 various users within a 5 minute timeframe from the same source. This is a potential indication of a password spray attack To use this analytics rule, make sure you have deployed the ASIM normalization parsers

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Credential Access	`T1110` Brute Force

Event coverage

Provider	Event	Title
Security-Auditing	Event ID 4624	An account was successfully logged on.
Security-Auditing	Event ID 4625	An account failed to log on.
Security-Auditing	Event ID 4634	An account was logged off.

Rule body kusto

id: 6a2e2ff4-5568-475e-bef2-b95f12b9367b
name: Potential Password Spray Attack (Uses Authentication Normalization)
description: |
  'This query searches for failed attempts to log in from more than 15 various users within a 5 minute timeframe from the same source. This is a potential indication of a password spray attack
   To use this analytics rule, make sure you have deployed the [ASIM normalization parsers](https://aka.ms/ASimAuthentication)'
severity: Medium
requiredDataConnectors: []
queryFrequency: 1h
queryPeriod: 1h
triggerOperator: gt
triggerThreshold: 0
tactics:
  - CredentialAccess 
relevantTechniques:
  - T1110
tags:
  - Id: e27dd7e5-4367-4c40-a2b7-fcd7e7a8a508
    version: 1.0.0
  - Schema: ASIMAuthentication
    SchemaVersion: 0.1.0
query: |
  let FailureThreshold = 15;
  imAuthentication
  | where EventType== 'Logon' and  EventResult== 'Failure'
  // reason: creds 
  | where EventResultDetails in ('No such user or password', 'Incorrect password')
  | summarize UserCount=dcount(TargetUserId), Vendors=make_set(EventVendor), Products=make_set(EventVendor)
    , Users = make_set(TargetUserId,100) 
      by SrcDvcIpAddr, SrcGeoCountry, bin(TimeGenerated, 5m)
  | where UserCount > FailureThreshold
entityMappings:
  - entityType: IP
    fieldMappings:
      - identifier: Address
        columnName: SrcDvcIpAddr
version: 1.1.3
kind: Scheduled
metadata:
    source:
        kind: Community
    author:
        name: Ofer Shezaf
    support:
        tier: Community
    categories:
        domains: [ "Security - Others", "Identity" ]

Stages and Predicates

Parameters

let FailureThreshold = 15;

Stage 1: `source`

imAuthentication

Stage 2: `where`

| where EventType== 'Logon' and  EventResult== 'Failure'

Stage 3: `where`

| where EventResultDetails in ('No such user or password', 'Incorrect password')

Stage 4: `summarize`

| summarize UserCount=dcount(TargetUserId), Vendors=make_set(EventVendor), Products=make_set(EventVendor)
  , Users = make_set(TargetUserId,100) 
    by SrcDvcIpAddr, SrcGeoCountry, bin(TimeGenerated, 5m)

Threshold: gt 15

Stage 5: `where`

| where UserCount > FailureThreshold

Indicators

Each row is a field, operator, and value that the rule matches. The corpus column counts how many other rules in the catalog look for the same combination: high numbers point to widely-used, community-vetted indicators. Blank or 1 shows that the indicator is specific to this rule.

Field	Kind	Values
`EventResult`	eq	`Failure` transforms: `cased` corpus 2 (kusto 2)
`EventResultDetails`	in	`Incorrect password` transforms: `cased` `No such user or password` transforms: `cased`
`EventType`	eq	`Logon` transforms: `cased` corpus 2 (kusto 2)
`UserCount`	gt	`15` transforms: `cased` corpus 2 (kusto 2)

Output fields

Fields the rule emits when it matches. Chronicle authors list these in the outcome block; they appear on the detection and $risk_score drives alerting. Sentinel / Defender XDR rules build them up through project / summarize / extend stages. Sentinel maps these into alert fields via entityMappings and customDetails; Defender XDR custom detections surface them as alert fields directly.

Field	Source
`Products`	`summarize`
`SrcDvcIpAddr`	`summarize`
`SrcGeoCountry`	`summarize`
`UserCount`	`summarize`
`Users`	`summarize`
`Vendors`	`summarize`

`j` / `k`	Scroll down / up
`d` / `u`	Half-page down / up
`gg` / `G`	Top / bottom
`h` / `l`	History back / forward
`f`	Follow link (`Shift` = new tab)
`/`	Focus search
`?`	Toggle this help
`↑` / `↓`	Navigate search results
`Enter`	Open highlighted result
`Esc`	Close results / dialog

`type:`	`events` / `rules` / `providers`
`vendor:`	`sigma` / `elastic` / `splunk` / `kusto` / `chronicle` (vendor name alone also works: `sigma:`, `kql:`, `secops:`…)
`tactic:`	TA-id, slug, or name: `credential_access`, `TA0006`
`technique:`	technique or sub-technique ID: `T1003`, `T1003.001` (alias `tech:`)
`severity:`	`critical` / `high` / `medium` / `low` / `informational` (alias `sev:`)
`risk_score`	Numeric comparison on the Elastic risk score (0 to 100): `risk_score>50`, `risk_score<=20`, `risk_score=99` (alias `risk`; Elastic rules only)
`stages:`	Rules with exactly N pipeline stages
`correlation:`	`single_event` / `sequence` / `alternatives` / `alternatives_cross_log` / `all_required` / `correlated`
`with:`	Co-occurrence event-id; stacks (`with:4624 with:4769`) to require all, while a comma list in one occurrence (`with:4624,4769`) is an either-or group. Implies multi-event
`like:`	Structural neighbors of a rule slug (equivalents + subsumption stricter / broader): `like:comsvcs_lsass_memory_dump-splunk-sysmon`
`groupby:`	Entity-grouping substring match against `group_by_keys`: `groupby:user`, `groupby:host`
`uses:`	Rules whose predicate tree touches the field (any kind, any value): `uses:CommandLine`
`excludes:`	Rules with top-level `not()` clauses on the field (FP whitelists): `excludes:ParentImage`
`field:` / `value:`	Predicate search; narrows rule cards to those with a matching leaf and drives the indicator tier. Unquoted = substring, wildcards allowed (`value:mimikatz`)
`indicator:`	Shorthand for `field:F value:V`: `indicator:Image=*\powershell.exe`
`kind:`	Filter by predicate kind. Narrows rule cards to those carrying a matching predicate leaf (`vendor:elastic kind:cidr_match`) and drives the indicator tier: `contains` / `starts_with` / `ends_with` / `regex` / `cidr` / `eq` / `in` … (operator aliases `op:`/`match:`)
`has:` / `no:`	`sample`, `field`, `notes`, `refs`, `trace`, `thirdparty`, `rule`, `pattern`, `timewindow`, `threshold`, `newterms`, `sigma`/`elastic`/`splunk`/`kusto`/`chronicle`
`-op:val`	Exclude matches; works on most operators but not `type:`/`like:`/`has:`/`no:` (use `no:<flag>` to exclude a rule flag): `tactic:execution -vendor:splunk`. Standalone `-kind:`/`-field:`/`-value:` drop every rule carrying a matching predicate leaf (`type:rules -kind:is_null`)
`field:"…"` / `value:"…"`	Quoted value = anchored exact match (also allows spaces): `value:"net user"`
`a,b`	Comma = OR inside one operator (`vendor:sigma,elastic`, `severity:high,critical`); repeating a facet merges the same way. `field:`/`value:` never split (literal commas)
`vendors:` / `stage:`	Singular and plural spellings fold to the canonical operator and value: `tactics:` = `tactic:`, `type:event` = `type:events`, `correlation:sequences` = `correlation:sequence`, `has:thresholds` = `has:threshold`
`"quoted phrase"`	Exact-match a multi-word phrase (free text)

Potential Password Spray Attack (Uses Authentication Normalization)

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Event coverage

Rule body kusto

Stages and Predicates

Parameters

Stage 1: `source`

Stage 2: `where`

Stage 3: `where`

Stage 4: `summarize`

Stage 5: `where`

Indicators

Output fields

Keyboard shortcuts

Search operators

Potential Password Spray Attack (Uses Authentication Normalization)

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Event coverage

Rule body kusto

Stages and Predicates

Parameters

Stage 1: source

Stage 2: where

Stage 3: where

Stage 4: summarize

Stage 5: where

Indicators

Output fields

Stage 1: `source`

Stage 2: `where`

Stage 3: `where`

Stage 4: `summarize`

Stage 5: `where`