Adversaries may use brute force techniques to gain access to accounts when passwords are unknown or when password hashes are obtained.(Citation: TrendMicro Pawn Storm Dec 2020) Without knowledge of the password for an account or set of accounts, an adversary may systematically guess the password using a repetitive or iterative mechanism.(Citation: Dragos Crashoverride 2018) Brute forcing passwords can take place via interaction with a service that will check the validity of those credentials or offline against previously acquired credential data, such as password hashes.
Brute forcing credentials may take place at various points during a breach. For example, adversaries may attempt to brute force access to Valid Accounts within a victim environment leveraging knowledge gathered from other post-compromise behaviors such as OS Credential Dumping, Account Discovery, or Password Policy Discovery. Adversaries may also combine brute forcing activity with behaviors such as External Remote Services as part of Initial Access.
If an adversary guesses the correct password but fails to login to a compromised account due to location-based conditional access policies, they may change their infrastructure until they match the victim’s location and therefore bypass those policies.(Citation: ReliaQuest Health Care Social Engineering Campaign 2024)
View in MITRE ATT&CK®| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CIS-6.5 | Require MFA for Administrative Access | mitigates | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for administrative accounts to help prevent adversaries from brute forcing admin credentials.
References
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| CIS-13.5 | Manage Access Control for Remote Access | mitigates | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
Conditional access policies for remote enterprise assets can deny authentication attempts from devices that do not satisfy enterprise security requirements, reducing the ability to use brute-force activity from non-compliant remote endpoints.
References
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| CIS-5.2 | Use Unique Passwords | mitigates | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
Unique passwords and minimum password lengths, which directly reduce the effectiveness of brute-force attacks by increasing the number of possible password combinations and limiting the reuse of compromised credentials across systems. This makes online password guessing and offline password cracking more difficult and reduces the success of credential-stuffing attacks.
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| CIS-6.3 | Require MFA for Externally-Exposed Applications | mitigates | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
Enabling multi-factor authentication can prevent adversaries from gaining access through brute force attacks against authentication interfaces on externally facing services.
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| CIS-4.10 | Enforce Automatic Device Lockout on Portable End-User Devices | mitigates | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
Automatic device lockout limits the number of consecutive authentication attempts that can be made against a portable device, directly reducing the likelihood that repeated online password attempts will succeed.
References
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| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| action.hacking.variety.Brute force | Brute force or password guessing attacks. | related-to | T1110 | Brute Force | |
| action.hacking.variety.OS commanding | OS commanding. Child of 'Exploit vuln'. | related-to | T1110 | Brute Force | |
| action.hacking.vector.Command shell | Remote shell | related-to | T1110 | Brute Force | |
| action.malware.variety.Brute force | Brute force attack | related-to | T1110 | Brute Force |
| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| advanced_protection_program | Advanced Protection Program | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
Advanced Protection Program enables the use of a security key for multi-factor authentication. This provides significant protection against Brute Force techniques attempting to gain access to accounts.
References
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| cloud_endpoints | Cloud Endpoints | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
Cloud Endpoints allows administrators to set up login challenges, where a user attempting to access an API might be prompted to complete an additional verification step (like entering a code sent to their phone or answering a security question) before being granted access.
References
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| cloud_identity | Cloud Identity | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
This control may mitigate brute force attacks by enforcing multi-factor authentication, enforcing strong password policies, and rotating credentials periodically. These recommendations are IAM best practices but must be explicitly implemented by a cloud administrator.
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| cloud_ids | Cloud IDS | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
Often used by adversaries to gain access to a system, Palo Alto Network's vulnerability signature is able to detect multiple repetitive occurrences of a condition in a particular time that could indicate a brute force attack (e.g., failed logins).
Although there are ways an attacker could brute force a system while avoiding detection, this technique was scored as significant based on Palo Alto Network's advanced threat detection technology which constantly updates to detect against the latest known variations of these attacks.
References
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| identity_platform | Identity Platform | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) methods, such as SMS, can also be used to help protect user accounts from phishing attacks. MFA provides significant protection against password compromises, requiring the adversary to complete an additional authentication method before their access is permitted.
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| security_command_center | Security Command Center | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
SCC uses syslog to detect successful brute force attacks [via SSH] on a host. Because of the near-real time temporal factor when detecting cyber-attacks this control was graded as significant.
References
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| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aws_security_hub | AWS Security Hub | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
AWS Security Hub performs a check from the AWS Foundations CIS Benchmark that, if implemented, would help towards detecting the brute forcing of accounts. AWS Security Hub provides this detection with the following checks.
3.6 Ensure a log metric filter and alarm exist for AWS Management Console authentication failures
This is scored as Minimal because it only applies to the AWS Management Console and not other access mechanisms (e.g., CLI, SDK, etc.) and it only supports a subset of the sub-techniques. Furthermore, it does not detect brute-forcing methods for other components such as EC2 instances.
References
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| amazon_cognito | Amazon Cognito | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
Amazon Cognito's MFA capability provides significant protection against password compromises, requiring the adversary to complete an additional authentication method before their access is permitted.
References
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| amazon_inspector | Amazon Inspector | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
The Amazon Inspector Best Practices assessment package can detect security control settings related to authentication and password policies on Linux endpoints. Specific security controls it can assess include "Disable password authentication over SSH", "Configure password maximum age", "Configure password minimum length", and "Configure password complexity" all of which impact the ability to brute force a password. This information can be used identify insecure configurations and harden the endpoints. Amazon Inspector does not directly protect against brute force attacks. Given Amazon Inspector can only assess these security controls on Linux platforms (although it also supports Windows), the coverage score is Minimal leading to an overall Minimal score.
References
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| aws_config | AWS Config | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
This control provides significant coverage for all of this technique's sub-techniques, resulting in an overall score of Significant.
References
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| aws_identity_and_access_management | AWS Identity and Access Management | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
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| amazon_guardduty | Amazon GuardDuty | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
Finding types such as UnauthorizedAccess:EC2/RDPBruteForce, UnauthorizedAccess:EC2/SSHBruteForce, Impact:EC2/WinRMBruteForce, and Stealth:IAMUser/PasswordPolicyChange can detect when an EC2 instance may be involved in a brute force attack aimed at obtaining passwords. Due to the detection being limited to a specific set of application protocols, its coverage is Minimal resulting in a Minimal score.
References
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| aws_single_sign-on | AWS Single Sign-On | technique_scores | T1110 | Brute Force |
Comments
This control may not provide any mitigation against password cracking.
References
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| Technique ID | Technique Name | Number of Mappings |
|---|---|---|
| T1110.001 | Password Guessing | 15 |
| T1110.002 | Password Cracking | 10 |
| T1110.003 | Password Spraying | 16 |
| T1110.004 | Credential Stuffing | 16 |