5 min read

Symptom

Account Lockouts in Active Directory

Additional Information

“User X” is getting locked out and Security Event ID 4740 are logged on respective servers with detailed information.

Reason

The common causes for account lockouts are:

  • End-user mistake (typing a wrong username or password)
  • Programs with cached credentials or active threads that retain old credentials
  • Service accounts passwords cached by the service control manager
  • User is logged in on multiple computers or disconnected remote terminal server sessions
  • Scheduled tasks
  • Persistent drive mappings
  • Active Directory delayed replication

Troubleshooting Steps Using EventTracker

Here we are going to look for Event ID 4740. This is the security event that is logged whenever an account gets locked.

  1. Login to EventTracker console:

2. Select search on the menu bar

3. Click on advanced search

4. On the Advanced Log Search Window fill in the following details:

  • Enter the result limit in numbers, here 0 means unlimited.
  • Select the date, time range for the logs to be searched.
  • Select all the domain controllers in the required domain.
  • Click on the inverted triangle, make the search for Event ID: 4740 as shown below.

Once done hit search at the bottom.

You can see the details below. If you want to get more information about a particular log, click on the + sign

Below shows more information about this event.

Now, let’s take a closer look at 4740 event. This can help us troubleshoot this issue.

Log Name Security
Source Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing
Date MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS PM
Event ID 4740
Task Category User Account Management
Level Information
Keywords Audit Success
User N/A
Computer COMPANY-SVRDC1
Description A user account was locked out.
Subject:
Security ID NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Account Name COMPANY-SVRDC1$
Account Domain TOONS
Logon ID 0x3E7
Account That Was Locked Out:
Security ID S-1-5-21-1135150828-2109348461-2108243693-1608
Account Name demouser
Additional Information:
Caller Computer Name DEMOSERVER1
Field My Description
DateTime This shows Date/Time of event origination in GMT format.
Source This shows the Name of an Application or System Service originating the event.
Type This shows Warning, Information, Error, Success, Failure, etc.
User This is the user/service/computer initiating event. (Name with a $ means it’s a computer/system initiated event.
Computer This shows the name of server workstation where event was logged.
EventID Numerical ID of event.
Description This contains the entire unparsed event message.
Log Name The name of the event log (e.g. Application, Security, System, etc.)
Task Category A name for a subclass of events within the same Event Source.
Level Warning, Information, Error, etc.
Keywords Audit Success, Audit Failure, Classic, Connection etc.
Category This shows the name for an aggregative event class, corresponding to the similar ones present in Windows 2003 version.
Subject: Account Name Name of the account that initiated the action.
Subject: Account Domain Name of the domain that account initiating the action belongs to.
Subject: Logon ID A number that uniquely identifying the logon session of the user initiating action. This number can be used to correlate all user actions within one logon session.
Subject: Security ID SID of the locked out user
Account Name Account That Was Locked Out
Caller Computer Name This is the computer where the logon attempts occurred

Resolution

Logon into the computer mentioned on “Caller Computer Name”  (DEMOSERVER1) and look for one of the aforementioned reasons that produces the problem.

To understand further on how to resolve issues present on “Caller Computer Name”  (DEMOSERVER1) let us look into the different logon types.

LogonType Code 0
LogonType Value System
LogonType Meaning Used only by the System account.
Resolution No evidence so far seen that can contribute towards account lock out
LogonType Code 2
LogonType Value Interactive
LogonType Meaning A user logged on to this computer.
Resolution User has typed wrong password on the console
LogonType Code 3
LogonType Value Network
LogonType Meaning A user or computer logged on to this computer from the network.
Resolution User has typed wrong password from the network. It can be a connection from Mobile Phone/ Network Shares etc.
LogonType Code 4
LogonType Value Batch
LogonType Meaning Batch logon type is used by batch servers, where processes may be executing on behalf of a user without their direct intervention.
Resolution Batch file has an expired or wrong password
LogonType Code 5
LogonType Value Service
LogonType Meaning A service was started by the Service Control Manager.
Resolution Service is configured with a wrong password
LogonType Code 6
LogonType Value Proxy
LogonType Meaning Indicates a proxy-type logon.
Resolution No evidence so far seen that can contribute towards account lock out
LogonType Code 7
LogonType Value Unlock
LogonType Meaning This workstation was unlocked.
Resolution User has typed a wrong password on a password protected screen saver
LogonType Code 8
LogonType Value NetworkCleartext
LogonType Meaning A user logged on to this computer from the network. The user’s password was passed to the authentication package in its unhashed form. The built-in authentication packages all hash credentials before sending them across the network. The credentials do not traverse the network in plaintext (also called cleartext).
Resolution No evidence so far seen that can contribute towards account lock out
LogonType Code 9
LogonType Value NewCredentials
LogonType Meaning A caller cloned its current token and specified new credentials for outbound connections. The new logon session has the same local identity, but uses different credentials for other network connections.
Resolution User initiated an application using the RunAs command, but with wrong password.
LogonType Code 10
LogonType Value RemoteInteractive
LogonType Meaning A user logged on to this computer remotely using Terminal Services or Remote Desktop.
Resolution User has typed wrong password while logging in to this computer remotely using Terminal Services or Remote Desktop
LogonType Code 11
LogonType Value CachedInteractive
LogonType Meaning A user logged on to this computer with network credentials that were stored locally on the computer. The domain controller was not contacted to verify the credentials.
Resolution No evidence so far seen that can contribute towards account lock out as domain controller is never contacted in this case.
LogonType Code 12
LogonType Value CachedRemoteInteractive
LogonType Meaning Same as RemoteInteractive. This is used for internal auditing.
Resolution No evidence so far seen that can contribute towards account lock out as domain controller is never contacted in this case.
LogonType Code 13
LogonType Value CachedUnlock
LogonType Meaning This workstation was unlocked with network credentials that were stored locally on the computer. The domain controller was not contacted to verify the credentials.
Resolution No evidence so far seen that can contribute towards account lock out as domain controller is never contacted in this case.

How to identify the logon type for this locked out account?

Just like how it is shown earlier for Event ID 4740, do a log search for Event ID 4625 using EventTracker, and check the details.

Log Name Security
Source Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing
Date date
Event ID 4625
Task Category Logon
Level Information
Keywords Audit Failure
User N/A
Computer COMPANY-SVRDC1
Description An account failed to log on.
Subject:
Security ID SYSTEM
Account Name COMPANY-SVRDC1$
Account Domain TOONS
Logon ID ID
Logon Type 7
Account For Which Logon Failed:
Security ID NULL SID

Account Name demouser
Account Domain TOONS

Failure Information:
Failure Reason An Error occurred during Logon.
Status 0xc000006d
Sub Status 0xc0000380
Process Information:
Caller Process ID 0x384
Caller Process Name C:\Windows\System32\winlogon.exe
Network Information:
Workstation Name computer name
Source Network Address IP address
Source Port 0
Detailed Authentication Information:
Logon Process User32
Authentication Package Negotiate
Transited Services –
Package Name (NTLM only) –
Key Length 0

Logon Type 7 says User has typed a wrong password on a password protected screen saver.

Now we understand what reason to target and how to target the same.

Applies to

Microsoft Windows Servers
Microsoft Windows Desktops

Contributors

Ashwin Venugopal, Subject Matter Expert at EventTracker
Satheesh Balaji, Security Analyst at EventTracker

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