AN1336: Analytic 1336
A high volume of authentication failures using a single password (or small set) across many different user accounts within a defined time window
Analyst context for executives and security teams
This analytic describes a Windows-focused authentication pattern: many failed logons across many accounts using one password or a small password set within a defined time window. For leaders, the value is not the alert itself but whether the organization can quickly distinguish broad credential guessing from normal authentication noise before account lockouts, help desk disruption, or identity compromise affect operations.
Executive priority
Prioritize this as an identity-resilience and SOC-readiness validation item. Executives should ask whether Windows authentication failures are centrally collected, correlated across accounts, and reviewed with enough context to support fast incident decisions. This also supports audit evidence around monitoring of authentication abuse, but the supplied ATT&CK object does not specify a tactic, relationship, or guaranteed detection method.
Technical view
SOC and detection teams should validate correlation logic that identifies a high volume of authentication failures against many distinct user accounts within a time window, especially where the pattern suggests one password or a small set being tried repeatedly. Because the official detection field is not provided, teams must define local thresholds, time windows, and grouping keys using available Windows authentication telemetry. Important validation points include distinct account count, failure volume, source system or network origin when available, target system, timestamps, and failure reasons.
Likely telemetry
- Windows authentication failure logs
- Centralized Windows security event collection or SIEM records
- Account identifiers and distinct account counts
- Timestamped failure events for time-window correlation
- Source host, source address, or logon origin where available
Detection direction
- Confirm that authentication failures from Windows environments are collected consistently and retained long enough for time-window analysis.
- Build or tune correlation for many failed authentications across many user accounts, rather than only repeated failures against one account.
- Validate thresholds against local baseline activity to reduce false positives from application misconfiguration, expired credentials, service account issues, help desk events, or authentication infrastructure problems.
- Account for a key blind spot: many authentication logs do not expose the attempted password, so detection may need to infer this behavior from volume, account spread, source consistency, and timing rather than direct password visibility.
- Ensure triage playbooks capture affected accounts, common source indicators, time span, and whether failures are followed by successful authentication.
Mitigation priorities
- First ensure reliable Windows authentication logging and centralized correlation before relying on this analytic operationally.
- Review identity controls that reduce the value of broad password guessing, such as strong password policy, multifactor authentication where applicable, and controls for repeated failed authentication.
- Tune account lockout or rate-limiting policies carefully to balance attack resistance with the risk of business disruption from mass lockouts.
- Prepare incident response steps for validating affected accounts, checking for follow-on successful logons, and coordinating user or credential actions when needed.
Analyst notes and limits
This is a detection analytic object, not a full ATT&CK technique description. The supplied object states Windows as the platform and describes the behavioral pattern, but it provides no official detection logic, tactic, related technique, mitigation, or relationship context. Treat it as a prompt to validate identity telemetry and correlation coverage rather than as a complete rule.
The assessment is limited to the supplied STIX fields and external reference for AN1336. No active exploitation, attribution, impact, cloud coverage, or guaranteed detection coverage is implied. Local authentication architecture, logging quality, thresholds, and incident response procedures are required to make this analytic operational.
Analytic 1336
A high volume of authentication failures using a single password (or small set) across many different user accounts within a defined time window
How security teams should use this page
Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.
All related ATT&CK context
No relationships are available in the current normalized data for this object.
Object version and sync metadata
The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates .
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Current bundle | 46e83c818623… |
Mirrored ATT&CK source object
The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.
External references and citations
MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.
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[1]
mitre-attack AN1336Open source URL
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