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Password spraying

As explained in The Art of Code

Password spraying is a brute-force attack that tries a small set of commonly used passwords across many accounts.

Password spraying is a brute-force attack that tries a small set of commonly used passwords across many accounts. Repeated invalid-credential submissions can indicate password spraying rather than an ordinary typing mistake. section 7.2.3

Treat suspected password spraying as an actionable security event:

  • Log the event rather than ignoring it as routine login failure. section 7.2.3
  • Monitor logged activity and address suspected attacks immediately. section 7.2.3
  • Send production logs to persistent, aggregatable destinations instead of relying only on console output. section 7.2.3

How The Art of Code covers it

How deep it goes
Defines the attack and its detection signal but does not detail attack execution or defensive controls.
Examples
Uses repeated invalid login submissions as the concrete signal for a possible attack.
What you can do after
Operate/configure logging and monitoring to surface suspected password-spraying activity for immediate response.
How it connects
Connects password spraying with brute-force attacks, credential stuffing, invalid credentials, logging, and monitoring.
Cover of The Art of Code
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This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of The Art of Code. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.