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OSSEC / HIDS Rule 5905

OSSEC / HIDS rule catalog

  • Rule family: OSSEC / HIDS
  • Rule ID: 5905
  • Definition status: Present in current source
  • Alert message / subject: Failed adding user to the system
  • Rule level: 8
  • Definition checked: 2026-10-21

Interpretation and response

This event is recorded as “Failed adding user to the system”. 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

Note: ASL does not cause this event to occur, it simply reports when another application is causing this to occur.

This event reports when the operating system, or an application, has been instructed to add a user and has failed to do add this user. This event is not caused by ASL, ASL simply reports when this event occurs.

Log example

Illustrative event summary (not a captured log): OSSEC/HIDS 5905 — Failed adding user to the system.

Troubleshooting

False Positives

The rule itself can not generate a false positive, the rule just reports when this event occurs.

Tuning Guidance

We do not recommend you disable this rule. Disabling this rule will not prevent this event from occuring, but will prevent ASL from reporting when it occurs and may effect ASLs ability to correlate events that may indicate an attack is under way.

Source and revision

Migrated from HIDS_5905, wiki page 486, revision 4114 (20131029). 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 .