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Description

The following analytic identifies one source endpoint failing to authenticate with multiple valid users using the NTLM protocol. This behavior could represent an adversary performing a Password Spraying attack against an Active Directory environment using NTLM to obtain initial access or elevate privileges. Event 4776 is generated on the computer that is authoritative for the provided credentials. For domain accounts, the domain controller is authoritative. For local accounts, the local computer is authoritative. Error code 0xC000006A means: misspelled or bad password (the attempted user is a legitimate domain user).
The detection calculates the standard deviation for each host and leverages the 3-sigma statistical rule to identify an unusual number of users. To customize this analytic, users can try different combinations of the bucket span time and the calculation of the upperBound field. This logic can be used for real time security monitoring as well as threat hunting exercises.
This detection will only trigger on domain controllers, not on member servers or workstations.
The analytics returned fields allow analysts to investigate the event further by providing fields like source workstation name and attempted user accounts.

  • Type: Anomaly

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

  • Last Updated: 2021-04-13
  • Author: Mauricio Velazco, Splunk
  • ID: 7ed272a4-9c77-11eb-af22-acde48001122

Annotations

ATT&CK
ID Technique Tactic
T1110.003 Password Spraying Credential Access
T1110 Brute Force Credential Access
Kill Chain Phase
  • Exploitation
NIST
CIS20
CVE 
1
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 `wineventlog_security` EventCode=4776 Logon_Account!="*$" 0xC000006A action=failure 
| bucket span=2m _time 
| stats dc(Logon_Account) AS unique_accounts values(Logon_Account) as tried_accounts by _time, Source_Workstation 
| eventstats avg(unique_accounts) as comp_avg , stdev(unique_accounts) as comp_std by Source_Workstation 
| eval upperBound=(comp_avg+comp_std*3) 
| eval isOutlier=if(unique_accounts > 10 and unique_accounts >= upperBound, 1, 0) 
| search isOutlier=1 
| `multiple_users_failing_to_authenticate_from_host_using_ntlm_filter`

Macros

The SPL above uses the following Macros:

Note that multiple_users_failing_to_authenticate_from_host_using_ntlm_filter is a empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Required field

  • _time
  • EventCode
  • action
  • Logon_Account
  • Source_Workstation

How To Implement

To successfully implement this search, you need to be ingesting Domain Controller events. The Advanced Security Audit policy setting Audit Credential Validation within Account Logon needs to be enabled.

Known False Positives

A host failing to authenticate with multiple valid domain users is not a common behavior for legitimate systems. Possible false positive scenarios include but are not limited to vulnerability scanners and missconfigured systems. If this detection triggers on a host other than a Domain Controller, the behavior could represent a password spraying attack against the host’s local accounts.

Associated Analytic story

RBA

Risk Score Impact Confidence Message
49.0 70 70 Potential NTLM based password spraying attack from $Source_Workstation$

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

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