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Description

The following analytic identifies multiple failed multi-factor authentication requests for a single user within a PingID (PingOne) environment. Specifically, the analytic triggers when 10 or more MFA user prompts fail within 10 minutes. PingID environments can be very different depending on the organization, Security teams should test this detection and customize these arbitrary thresholds. The detected behavior may represent an adversary who has obtained legitimate credentials for a user and continuously repeats login attempts in order to bombard users with MFA push notifications, SMS messages, and phone calls potentially resulting in the user finally accepting the authentication request. Threat actors like the Lapsus team and APT29 have leveraged this technique to bypass multi-factor authentication controls as reported by Mandiant and others.

  • Type: TTP
  • Product: Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Enterprise Security, Splunk Cloud

  • Last Updated: 2023-09-26
  • Author: Steven Dick
  • ID: c1bc706a-0025-4814-ad30-288f38865036

Annotations

ATT&CK

ATT&CK

ID Technique Tactic
T1621 Multi-Factor Authentication Request Generation Credential Access
T1078 Valid Accounts Defense Evasion, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Initial Access
T1110 Brute Force Credential Access
Kill Chain Phase
  • Exploitation
  • Installation
  • Delivery
NIST
  • DE.CM
CIS20
  • CIS 10
CVE
1
2
3
4
5
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8
`pingid` "result.status" IN ("FAILURE,authFail","UNSUCCESSFUL_ATTEMPT") 
| eval time = _time, src = coalesce('resources{}.ipaddress','resources{}.devicemodel'), user = upper('actors{}.name'), object = 'resources{}.devicemodel', reason = 'result.message'
| bucket span=10m _time 
| stats dc(_raw) AS mfa_prompts min(time) as firstTime, max(time) as lastTime values(src) as src by user, reason, _time 
| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)` 
| where mfa_prompts >= 10 
| `pingid_multiple_failed_mfa_requests_for_user_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

:information_source: pingid_multiple_failed_mfa_requests_for_user_filter is a empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Required fields

List of fields required to use this analytic.

  • _time
  • resources{}.ipaddress
  • actors{}.name
  • result.message
  • resources{}.devicemodel
  • result.status

How To Implement

Target environment must ingest JSON logging from a PingID(PingOne) enterprise environment, either via Webhook or Push Subscription.

Known False Positives

False positives may be generated by normal provisioning workflows for user device registration.

Associated Analytic Story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
50.0 100 50 Multiple Failed MFA requests $mfa_prompts$ for user $user$ between $firstTime$ and $lastTime$.

:information_source: The Risk Score is calculated by the following formula: Risk Score = (Impact * Confidence/100). Initial Confidence and Impact is set by the analytic author.

Reference

Test Dataset

Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py tool or the UI. Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range

source | version: 1