CAPEC-600
Credential Stuffing
An adversary tries known username/password combinations against different systems, applications, or services to gain additional authenticated access. Credential Stuffing attacks rely upon the fact that many users leverage the same username/password combination for multiple systems, applications, and services.
On this page
Attacks of this kind often target management services over commonly used ports such as SSH, FTP, Telnet, LDAP, Kerberos, MySQL, and more. Additional targets include Single Sign-On (SSO) or cloud-based applications/services that utilize federated authentication protocols, and externally facing applications.
The primary goal of Credential Stuffing is to achieve lateral movement and gain authenticated access to additional systems, applications, and/or services. A successfully executed Credential Stuffing attack could result in the adversary impersonating the victim or executing any action that the victim is authorized to perform.
Although not technically a brute force attack, Credential Stuffing attacks can function as such if an adversary possess multiple known passwords for the same user account. This may occur in the event where an adversary obtains user credentials from multiple sources or if the adversary obtains a user's password history for an account.
Credential Stuffing attacks are similar to Password Spraying attacks (CAPEC-565) regarding their targets and their overall goals. However, Password Spraying attacks do not have any insight into known username/password combinations and instead leverage common or expected passwords. This also means that Password Spraying attacks must avoid inducing account lockouts, which is generally not a worry of Credential Stuffing attacks. Password Spraying attacks may additionally lead to Credential Stuffing attacks, once a successful username/password combination is discovered.
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Explain the attack pattern CAPEC-600: Credential Stuffing: how it unfolds, what it needs and how to prevent and detect it in my systems. Use https://capec.mitre.org/data/definitions/600.html and https://cve.bz/cve/capec/600?via=ask-ai-copy, which lists recent CVEs with the weaknesses it exploits. Cite the sources.Opens a third-party assistant; its answer is its own, not cve.bz's. The prompt holds only this attack pattern's id and public links.
How the attack unfolds
Explore
The attacker looks for a way in.
[Acquire known credentials] The adversary must obtain known credentials in order to access the target system, application, or service.
5 techniques
- An adversary purchases breached username/password combinations or leaked hashed passwords from the dark web.
- An adversary leverages a key logger or phishing attack to steal user credentials as they are provided.
- An adversary conducts a sniffing attack to steal credentials as they are transmitted.
- An adversary gains access to a database and exfiltrates password hashes.
- An adversary examines outward-facing configuration and properties files to discover hardcoded credentials.
[Determine target's password policy] Determine the password policies of the target system/application to determine if the known credentials fit within the specified criteria.
3 techniques
- Determine minimum and maximum allowed password lengths.
- Determine format of allowed passwords (whether they are required or allowed to contain numbers, special characters, etc., or whether they are allowed to contain words from the dictionary).
- Determine account lockout policy (a strict account lockout policy will prevent brute force attacks if multiple passwords are known for a single user account).
Experiment
They probe what they found.
[Attempt authentication] Try each username/password combination until the target grants access.
1 technique
- Manually or automatically enter each username/password combination through the target's interface.
Exploit
They carry out the attack.
[Impersonate] An adversary can use successful experiments or authentications to impersonate an authorized user or system or to laterally move within a system or application
[Spoofing] Malicious data can be injected into the target system or into a victim user's system by an adversary. The adversary can also pose as a legitimate user to perform social engineering attacks.
[Data Exfiltration] The adversary can obtain sensitive data contained within the system or application.
Prerequisites
The system/application uses one factor password based authentication, SSO, and/or cloud-based authentication.
The system/application does not have a sound password policy that is being enforced.
The system/application does not implement an effective password throttling mechanism.
The adversary possesses a list of known user accounts and corresponding passwords that may exist on the target.
Skills required
- Low skill
A Credential Stuffing attack is very straightforward.
Resources required
A machine with sufficient resources for the job (e.g. CPU, RAM, HD).
A known list of username/password combinations.
A custom script that leverages the credential list to launch the attack.
Signs of an attack
Many invalid login attempts are coming from the same machine (same IP address) or for multiple user accounts within short succession.
The login attempts use passwords that have been used previously by the user account in question.
Login attempts are originating from IP addresses or locations that are inconsistent with the user's normal IP addresses or locations.
Consequences
| Impact | Affects | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Gain Privileges | Confidentiality, Access Control, Authentication | |
| Read Data | Confidentiality, Authorization | |
| Modify Data | Integrity |
Mitigations
Leverage multi-factor authentication for all authentication services and prior to granting an entity access to the domain network.
Create a strong password policy and ensure that your system enforces this policy.
Ensure users are not reusing username/password combinations for multiple systems, applications, or services.
Do not reuse local administrator account credentials across systems.
Deny remote use of local admin credentials to log into domain systems.
Do not allow accounts to be a local administrator on more than one system.
Implement an intelligent password throttling mechanism. Care must be taken to assure that these mechanisms do not excessively enable account lockout attacks such as CAPEC-2.
Monitor system and domain logs for abnormal credential access.
Weaknesses it exploits
- CWE-262 Not Using Password Aging
- CWE-263 Password Aging with Long Expiration
- CWE-307 Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts
- CWE-308 Use of Single-factor Authentication
- CWE-309 Use of Password System for Primary Authentication
- CWE-522 Insufficiently Protected Credentials
- CWE-654 Reliance on a Single Factor in a Security Decision
Recent CVEs with these weaknesses
- –CVE-2026-97867
The EJBd remote protocol returns datasource connection details, including database credentials, to remote clients that look up a datasource. A remote client able to reach the EJBd endpoint can obtain the database credentials and connect to…
- 6.0CVE-2026-89125
Due to Insecure Storage of Sensitive Information in SAP Web Dispatcher and Internet Communication Manager, an attacker with administrative privileges could obtain sensitive information from stored data. This may allow correlation of creden…
- 5.4CVE-2026-113968
A logic issue was addressed with improved state management. This issue is fixed in iOS 18.7.12 and iPadOS 18.7.12, iOS 26.7.3 and iPadOS 26.7.3, iOS 27.2.1 and iPadOS 27.2.1, macOS Golden Gate 27.2.1, macOS Sequoia 15.8.3, macOS Tahoe 26.7…
- 5.4CVE-2026-113964
A logic issue was addressed with improved state management. This issue is fixed in iOS 18.7.12 and iPadOS 18.7.12, iOS 26.7.3 and iPadOS 26.7.3, iOS 27.2.1 and iPadOS 27.2.1, macOS Golden Gate 27.2.1, macOS Sequoia 15.8.3, macOS Tahoe 26.7…
- 7.1CVE-2026-115340
Progress Software WS_FTP Server versions prior to 2025.0.5 on Windows may write sensitive user credential and session data to a temporary file during file transfer operations.
- 6.6CVE-2026-112164
The LaserGest mobile application encrypts stored assistance portal credentials with a hardcoded AES key and IV, allowing an attacker with access to the application package to recover them in cleartext.
- 6.9CVE-2026-112205
WidzialniCMS is vulnerable to Bruteforce Protection Bypass in the login functionality. The cookie-based lockout can be bypassed by omitting the login_count and login_timeout cookies, allowing an unauthenticated attacker to perform an unlim…
- –CVE-2026-111452
Apache Airflow's secrets masker matched sensitive key names only in their snake_case form, so values stored under camelCase keys such as `privateKey`, `connectionString`, `webhookUrl` or `accessKey` — for example in a Connection's extra or…
The newest records naming one of them. Each weakness's page lists them all.
Related attack patterns
- Part of
- CAPEC-560 Use of Known Domain Credentials
Examples
A user leverages the password "Password123" for a handful of application logins. An adversary obtains a victi…
A user leverages the password "Password123" for a handful of application logins. An adversary obtains a victim's username/password combination from a breach of a social media application and executes a Credential Stuffing attack against multiple banking and credit card applications. Since the user leverages the same credentials for their bank account login, the adversary successfully authenticates to the user's bank account and transfer money to an offshore account.
In October 2014 J.P. Morgan's Corporate Challenge website was breached, resulting in adversaries obtaining mu…
In October 2014 J.P. Morgan's Corporate Challenge website was breached, resulting in adversaries obtaining multiple username/password pairs. A Credential Stuffing attack was then executed against J.P. Morgan Chase, which resulted in over 76 million households having their accounts compromised.
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