The Microsoft Detection and Response Team (DART) says it detected an increase in password spray attacks targeting privileged cloud accounts and high-profile identities such as C-level executives.
Password spraying is a type of brute force attack where the attackers attempt to gain access to large lists of accounts using a small number of commonly used passwords.
These attacks often use the same password while switching from one account to another to find easy to breach accounts and avoid triggering defenses like password lockout and malicious IP blocking (when using a botnet).
This tactic makes it less likely to trigger an account lock as it happens when they're targeted in classic brute-forcing attacks that quickly try to log into a small number of accounts by going through an extensive password list, one account at a time.
