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OSSEC / HIDS Rule 2502

OSSEC / HIDS rule catalog

  • Rule family: OSSEC / HIDS
  • Rule ID: 2502
  • Definition status: Present in current source
  • Alert message / subject: User missed the password more than one time
  • Rule level: 10
  • Definition checked: 2026-10-21

Interpretation and response

This event is recorded as “User missed the password more than one time”. Review the originating log and the affected host or service to determine whether the activity was expected.

An OSSEC/HIDS event records or correlates activity. Blocking depends on the originating application and any separately configured Active Response policy; an alert alone does not prove that an attack was blocked.

Documentation

The following guidance was migrated from the historical wiki and reviewed against the rule definition. Legacy ASL product names and interface instructions refer to the versions documented then. Use the current metadata above and your installed configuration when interpreting thresholds, notification settings and response behavior.

Description

This means that an application on the system has reported to ASL that a user has failed to authenticate multiple times. The exact number of times it requires to trigger this depends on the application, and is not controlled by ASL. ASL is simply alerting that an application has reported that has experienced multiple authentication failures for a user.

You should investigate this event as it may be part of a broader attack.

Troubleshooting

False Positives

A legitimate event may trigger this rule; review its context. The event is not caused by ASL, but rather the application reports to ASL that it has experienced multiple authentication failures for a user. If your application is incorrectly reporting this, please report the issue to the application vendor. If ASL is incorrectly reporting an event, that is the application is not reporting multiple authentication failures, please let us know.

Source and revision

Migrated from HIDS_2502, wiki page 541, revision 4991 (20140716). Documentation review: 2026-10-21. An archived wiki status of Active is not a current deployment status.

For assistance, provide the rule ID, installed product and rule version, and a sanitized event to Atomicorp support .