How To Detect Brute Force Attacks?

Brute Force Attack is an attack where attackers follow a brute force approach to hack the username and passwords. Hackers use trial and error methods to get the user account credentials and steal the information of user accounts. In this article, we will cover a brief explanation of brute force attacks and how to detect brute force attacks.

There are various tools and techniques to detect brute-force attacks, We have to check our systems regularly to see if anything is going wrong with them. We have to update our system and put in a strong password that protects us from brute-force attacks. Hackers use target-oriented cyber pirate software and trial and error methods to extract user credentials and steal the information from user accounts. The main sign of a brute force attack is to increase your network traffic. If the network traffic increases in your website it means something suspicious going on your website that makes the performance slower in your website, in that case, make sure to use strong passwords in your website and never share credentials with anyone.

Here are some points that detect brute force attacks-

• A strong password is the best way to secure a user account and prevent hackers. A strong password combines uppercase and lowercase letters and any special characters. For example, Rxy123#@ab represents a strong password. Don’t use weak passwords, such as 1234 or xyz@123.

• Always give login attempts to the application whenever the hacker tries 1 to 2 times but they don’t crack the password. When they tried a third time they reached the maximum login attempt to crack the password.

• Always monitor the IP address when your employees work remotely. If any of the suspicious persons try to log in from an anonymous IP, block that person.

• Multifactor-authentication makes the user secure in any attacks. When the hacker tries to log into the user account, the application asks to enter the code and the code is going in the user’s mobile number and email ID. Make sure to always on multi multi-factor authentication to prevent hacker attacks.

• Deploy your application in a web application firewall, It secures our web application and blocks any suspicious activity. It protects web-based applications from attacks such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, etc.

Brute Force is an attack where hackers use a brute force approach or a combination of letters, alphabets, and numbers to hack the user’s password. for example- xyz@123 represents a weak password and this password hacker guess easily. If the user puts the date of birth as a password, hackers guess easily while applying the brute force technique they easily crack the password and steal the user’s sensitive information. In brute force attacks, hackers try to guess the password from a user’s account. If they tried successfully they easily got the credentials or stole the information of the user account. The diagram of brute force attack represents a brute force tool where hackers enter the username and password, the application authenticates a username and password, and if the response provided by the hacker is correct then the application succeeds otherwise failure.

These attacks are so dangerous because the hackers can easily crack the password by using free tools and automation scripts to hack the password. Most of the users put in weak passwords, it was pretty easy to guess hackers to crack the password.

Professional or experienced hackers use various types of brute force attack-

• Dictionary attack: In dictionary attacks, hackers use the combination of letters, and words in dictionaries and try to crack the password from user accounts.
• Simple bruteforce attack: In a simple brute force attack, hackers try to download the database of passwords from various resources and try to put them and crack the password in user accounts.
• Credential stuffing: In credential stuffing, many users use the same password on a different website in that case hackers guess easily and crack the password for the same. Make sure to use strong passwords and unique passwords in every application.
• Hybrid bruteforce attack: It is the combination of a dictionary attack and a simple brute force attack to achieve the success of cracking the password.
• Reverse bruteforce attack: In reverse brute force attack, hackers use already used passwords that target in no. of users present in the database. The motive of this attack is to access user accounts.

Here are the detection stratgies of Brute force attack-

• Monitoring and logging is the first detection strategy to detect brute force attack. While monitoring and logging the organization checks the system behavior and checks if anything is suspicious in the system. There are advanced tools and technologies that organizations use to protect themselves from brute force attacks or any other attacks.

• The second strategy is anomaly detection which identifies bruteforce patterns. It identifies suspicious activity that going on in our systems.

• The third strategy is MFA which stands for multi-factor authentication. It increases the security of our systems. Make sure to enable MFA on your systems to recover from brute force attacks.

Here are the defensive strategies of Brute force attack-

• The first strategy is the secure network levels. Make sure to block unknown IP addresses. Geolocation analysis checks the location of web traffic and if there is any suspicious IP address that wants to access your system they don’t access it because of Geolocation.

• The second strategy is rate limiting which checks how many times users try to log in in a certain amount of time. Make sure to give limited access to the login that reduces the brute force attacks.

• The third strategy is the IDS i.e. Intrusion detection system that tracks the network activity and if any suspicious activity is found it sends a warning message. This makes the user alert and recover from hackers.

Here are the six indicators of Brute force attack-

• Log in to the user account with an unknown IP address.
• Login successfully to the user account after failed attempts.
• Using the same IP into multiple accounts and failed login attempts.
• An unauthorized person tries to log in to your account.
• An unauthorized person used your account in the wrong way.
• After successfully logging into the user account, the use of the internet should be increased.

Here are the eight effective ways to detect and prevent brute force attacks-

• Usage of Strong password- The use of a strong password makes the user credentials strong and makes the brute force attack unsuccessful. Always make sure to don’t use weak passwords such as 1234. Use strong passwords such as abc#234@9. The tools such as password manager tools to secure from brute force attacks.

• Use multi-factor authentication:- The use of multifactor- authentication is recovered from brute force attacks. If the unauthorized person or hacker tries to log in to your account, the OTP or code is generated by the user’s mobile phone or email address. Make sure to enable multi-factor authentication that recovers us from hackers. Also if the hackers put in the correct user credentials they won’t be able to log in because the code is generated by using a mobile phone or email address.

• Give the login limits:- Give the login attempts in your application so that whenever hackers try to crack the password in more times they don’t crack it because of login limits.

• Without use of password:- Various authentications do not require manually entering the password, we can use login by voice, face recognition pattern that less the guessing of hackers.

• Training your employees:- Trained your employees for tools and security measures that protect them from brute force attacks or any other attacks.

• Track your network activity:- Monitor your network activity if found any suspicious in the system. Ekrun system provides various options that monitor the user behavior or user activity and give alerts if any suspicious activity is found.

• Give restriction to unknown ip address:- In organizations or companies, hackers are more focused on remote employees to steal the company data. In that situation, hackers try to log in to an unknown IP address to hack the company password. Don’t make sure and don’t give access to the unknown IP address and block them.

• Prevent hacker attacks through SSH:- SSH stands for secure shell. It is the protocol present in IT infrastructure. Hackers use SSH to try to access the server and steal the user credentials. Make sure to make the root inaccessible through a secure shell so that it hardens from hackers to crack the passwords.

As technology increases, there are various cyber security tools and techniques that prevent brute force attacks or any other cyber attack. So, Always stay connected with the latest tools and techniques to secure from hackers.

Define online brute force attacks

It is an attack where hackers use online services and tools to extract a set of user credentials and put them. If they guess successfully they crack the password and steal the information of user accounts.

What Should we have to do if we are targeted by brute force attacks

Here are points that needs to remember if you targeted by brute force attack

• Update or change your password
• Allow multi-factor authentication
• Update your system
• Report or Complaint the attack

List the tools that prevent Brute force attacks

Here are the tools that prevent brute force attacks-

• EVIWatcher
• CSF
• IPBan
• Malwarebytes
• Sentry