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AWS Root Console Login Password Spraying

Identifies failed authentication attempts against the AWS Management Console root user from the same source IP address targeting multiple AWS accounts. Password spraying uses few attempts per target across many…

Description

Identifies failed authentication attempts against the AWS Management Console root user from the same source IP address targeting multiple AWS accounts. Password spraying uses few attempts per target across many accounts to avoid lockout, making per-account volume an unreliable signal. This rule detects the cross-account breadth pattern: a single source IP generating root ConsoleLogin failures across two or more distinct AWS accounts. Requires an AWS Organizations-level CloudTrail trail aggregating events from member accounts.

Detection logic

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Detection requirements

Platform
ContainersESXiIaaSIdentity ProviderLinuxmacOSNetwork DevicesOffice SuiteSaaSWindows

The rule states no platform. This is derived from the ATT&CK technique it maps to.

Log source category
event_index

Known benign triggers

  • Administrators behind a shared egress address, such as a corporate NAT gateway or VPN concentrator, can trigger this rule when separate people mistype root passwords for different accounts within the window, since a single failure per account is sufficient. An administrator who legitimately holds root credentials for several accounts can also match. Verify whether the source IP is an expected corporate or administrator address, and whether the targeted accounts correspond to that person's scope, before escalating. Repeated failures against a single account do not trigger this rule and are covered by the separate brute-force rule.

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