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Status: Incomplete Weakness ID: 645 (Weakness Base)Description Summary The software contains an account lockout protection mechanism, but the mechanism is too restrictive and can be triggered too easily. This allows attackers to deny service to legitimate users by causing their accounts to be locked out. Extended Description Account lockout is a security feature often present in applications as a countermeasure to the brute force attack on the password based authentication mechanism of the system. After a certain number of failed login attempts, the users' account may be disabled for a certain period of time or until it is unlocked by an administrator. Other security events may also possibly trigger account lockout. However, an attacker may use this very security feature to deny service to legitimate system users. It is therefore important to ensure that the account lockout security mechanism is not overly restrictive. Likelihood of Exploit High Common Consequences Availability Users could be locked out of accounts. Enabling Factors for Exploitation The system has an account lockout mechanism. An attacker must be able to trigger the account lockout mechanism. The cost to the attacker of triggering the account lockout mechanism should be less than the cost to re-enable the account. Potential Mitigations Implement more intelligent password throttling mechanisms such as those which take IP address into account, in addition to the login name. Implement a lockout timeout that grows as the number of incorrect login attempts goes up, eventually resulting in a complete lockout. Consider alternatives to account lockout that would still be effective against password brute force attacks, such as presenting the user machine with a puzzle to solve (makes it do some computation). Observed Examples
Relationships
Applicable Platforms Languages All Time of Introduction  Architecture and DesignContent History Modifications CWE Content Team. MITRE. 2008-09-08. (Internal) updated Common_Consequences, Enabling_Factors_for_Exploitation, Relationships CWE Content Team. MITRE. 2008-10-14. (Internal) updated Description |
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