IP lockout works by analyzing those billions of sign-ins to assess the quality of traffic from each IP address hitting Microsoft’s systems. Tenants using Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) will be able to use Smart Lockout natively in ADFS in Windows Server 2016 starting in March 2018-look for this ability to come via Windows Update. This applies to all Azure AD sign-ins regardless of license level and to all Microsoft account sign-ins. This prevents denial-of-service on the user and stops overzealous password spray attacks. We can lock out the attacker while letting the valid user continue using the account. In the cloud, we use Smart Lockout to differentiate between sign-in attempts that look like they’re from the valid user and sign-ins from what may be an attacker. Because these are real time detection and protection systems driven from the cloud, they are available only when doing Azure AD authentication in the cloud (including Pass-Through Authentication). Our security detection algorithms allow us to detect and block attacks as they’re happening. In the cloud, we see billions of sign-ins to Microsoft systems every day. Four easy steps to disrupt password spray attacks Step 1: Use cloud authentication Read on to see what you can do now and in the coming months to stop password spray attacks. The good news is that Microsoft has many tools already implemented and available to blunt these attacks, and more are coming soon. The attackers don’t care much about who those initial targets are-just that they have some success that they can leverage. They use the accounts to get data from emails, harvest contact info, and send phishing links or just expand the password spray target group. Even though these most common passwords account for only 0.5-1.0% of accounts, the attacker will get a few successes for every thousand accounts attacked, and that’s enough to be effective. Target attack pattern evades most detection techniques because from the vantage point of an individual user or company, the attack just looks like an isolated failed login.įor attackers, it’s a numbers game: they know that there are some passwords out there that are very common.
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