Detect password spraying by looking across many accounts, not just at repeated failures on one account. Group authentication failures by time and shared context—such as source IP, application, user agent, and location—then compare the number of distinct accounts affected with your normal activity. Investigate any successful sign-in among the targets, because it may mean a password was validated.
What password spraying looks like in logs
Password spraying tests one or a small number of likely passwords against many accounts. That differs from brute force, which typically tries many passwords against one or a few targeted accounts. Microsoft describes this distinction in its user-account security operations guidance.
The key signal is therefore breadth: failures touching an unusual number of distinct accounts, often with shared source or request characteristics. A detector that only counts retries per account can miss a spray, especially when attempts are spread out or distributed across sources. Conversely, a cluster of failures alone is an indicator to investigate, not proof of an attack.
Make sure the relevant authentication logs are available
Start by listing the authentication paths in scope: Microsoft Entra, AD FS, domain controllers, and relevant applications or network services. A detector cannot correlate events that are not collected, and different protocols do not necessarily generate the same records.
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- Microsoft Entra: use sign-in records and, where available, Identity Protection risk detections.
- AD FS: Microsoft recommends detailed auditing and central correlation; basic auditing may not provide enough detail for investigation. See the Microsoft password-spray investigation playbook.
- On-premises Windows authentication: consider the applicable Security events for the observed protocol. MITRE’s distributed password-spraying detection strategy identifies events 4625, 4771, and 4648 as relevant data components. These are candidate sources for that strategy, not a universal list of events emitted by every authentication flow.
Centralize the records where possible so failures across identity systems, applications, and time can be correlated. Microsoft also provides a sample distinct-account anomaly query for Defender for Identity in its Password Spray hunting query.
Build a detection around distinct accounts and shared context
Choose an aggregation window and count distinct target accounts, rather than relying only on total failures. Group or correlate events using fields that help connect attempts into a campaign:
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- Target account and account type, including whether it is privileged
- Source IP address or range, and related or distributed sources where feasible
- Target application, service, or authentication endpoint
- User-agent string, device, and location
- Timestamp, event outcome, and spacing between attempts
- MFA result and any subsequent successful authentication
Ask whether a source or related set of sources is reaching an unusual number of distinct accounts within a short period—or at regular intervals over a longer period. A single-IP-only rule may miss activity spread across addresses; a short burst-only rule may miss low-and-slow attempts. MITRE identifies the aggregation window and password-reuse threshold as parameters to tune in its distributed strategy.
There is no universal failure count or time window established for all organizations. Use local behavior to set thresholds, and treat rules as hypotheses to test against real operational traffic rather than as proof by themselves.
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Look for low-and-slow patterns that evade simple lockouts
When account lockout thresholds or basic bad-password alerts do not fire, inspect the sequence and context of failures. Microsoft recommends looking for repeated attributes and timing patterns as part of its investigation guidance.
- Accounts appear in a repeated directory or naming order.
- Attempts share a user agent, application, IP block, or location.
- Failures recur at unusually regular intervals.
- Failures are spread across multiple addresses but share other characteristics.
These clues can also arise from legitimate clients or operational activity. Compare them with known authentication clients, scheduled services, and expected network egress before escalating.
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Investigate successful sign-ins among targeted accounts
Search for successful sign-ins to the accounts involved, especially successes that follow failures from the same or related infrastructure. Review the authentication context and what happened afterward:
- Was MFA completed, denied, or otherwise unsuccessful?
- Does the IP address, location, device, browser, or application fit the account’s normal use?
- Did the account access sensitive resources or perform unusual activity after signing in?
A correct password followed by failed MFA can still indicate that an attacker has the password. Microsoft Entra ID Protection defines its password-spray detection as observed spray activity with successful credential validation against a tenant user; see Investigate risk with Microsoft Entra ID Protection. Treat a successful validation as a reason to investigate the account and subsequent activity, not as evidence that every other targeted account was compromised.
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Tune alerts to your organization’s baseline
Set thresholds using expected user behavior, normal failed-password frequency, password reset and help-desk patterns, MFA activity, known egress IPs, and typical user geography. Apply tighter scrutiny to privileged accounts where appropriate. Microsoft recommends defining these baselines and adjusting thresholds to organizational behavior in its account security operations guidance.
After deploying a rule, review both false positives and coverage gaps. If ordinary client behavior repeatedly triggers it, refine context or thresholds; if attacks could be distributed or slow, broaden the aggregation logic and time handling. Keep the alert useful to responders by including the targeted accounts, correlated source and context fields, outcomes, and any successful credential validation.
Place the technique in the wider attack picture
MITRE ATT&CK classifies password spraying as T1110.003 under Brute Force. That classification helps situate the behavior, but the practical detection question remains whether failures across accounts form an abnormal, correlated pattern in your own authentication environment.
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