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OSSEC / HIDS Rule 3912
- Rule family: OSSEC / HIDS
- Rule ID: 3912
- Definition status: Present in current source
- Alert message / subject: Multiple failed logins, 6 failures in 60 seconds from the same IP.
- Rule level: 10
- Definition checked: 2026-10-21
- Configured frequency: 6
- Timeframe (seconds): 60
Correlation values are configuration attributes; event-count behavior depends on the manager version and parent rules.
Interpretation and response
This event is recorded as “Multiple failed logins, 6 failures in 60 seconds from the same IP.” 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.
Rule ID
3912
Status
The wiki marked this rule Active at the source revision. Current definition status is shown above.
Description
This rule detects multiple login failures to the Courier IMAP and POP3 servers from the same IP. The intent of this rule is to detect a malicious party attempting to brute force guess passwords.
The default settings are to detect 6 login failures, from the same IP, within 60 seconds.
This rule does not shun by default, it only alerts.
False Positives
This rule can be falsely triggered if multiple users are using the same IP address, such as behind a firewall and multiple users generate 6 or more failures within a 60 second period.
This can happen either with a large number of users (less probable), or an email client that can generate multiple connections at the same time (as with the IMAPX protocol, which is more probable), however because there are other rules that detect faster denail rates its very unlikely a single client would generate failures at such a slow rate.
If you believe that this is a false positive, then disable this rule or whitelist the source IP.
Tuning Recommendations
None.
Similar Rules
Source and revision
Migrated from HIDS_3912, wiki page 224, revision 1877 (20110821). 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 .