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Failed Login Attempts & Security Event Analysis Lab

📌 Project Overview

This project demonstrates hands-on practice in identifying failed login attempts and basic security events using Windows and Linux virtual machines.

The goal of this lab is to understand how security logs help detect unauthorized access attempts and potential brute-force attacks.

🛠 Tools & Technologies Used

  • VirtualBox
  • Windows 10
  • Linux (Ubuntu)
  • Event Viewer
  • Linux auth logs
  • Basic command-line tools
  • Wireshark (optional)

🔍 Scenarios Covered

  • Failed user login attempts
  • Account authentication failures
  • Suspicious login behavior
  • Log analysis and correlation

🪟 Windows Log Analysis

  • Analyzed Event ID 4625 (Failed Logon)
  • Identified:
    • Username
    • Logon type
    • Source IP address
  • Used Event Viewer for investigation

📸 Screenshots available in: screenshots/windows/

🐧 Linux Log Analysis

  • Analyzed authentication logs:

  • Failed SSH login attempts were filtered from auth.log using tail and grep to identify authentication failures.

sudo tail -n 50 /var/log/auth.log | grep -i "failed password"

📸 Screenshots available in: screenshots/linux/

🚨 Key Learnings

  1. Understanding authentication logs
  2. Identifying brute-force indicators
  3. Importance of log monitoring in SOC operations
  4. Hands-on exposure to real security events

📈 Future Improvements

  1. Integrate SIEM (Splunk / Elastic)
  2. Create alert rules
  3. Automate detection using Python

Event ID 4625 – Windows Failed Login Investigation

Event ID 4625 details were captured using the Details tab (Friendly and XML views).

Multiple screenshots were taken to document account, failure, and network information.

The following screenshots document the investigation workflow:

  1. Security log overview
  2. Filtered failed login events (Event ID 4625)
  3. Account and failure details
  4. Network and logon type analysis
  5. Raw XML event data

Linux Investigation- Failed login

1️⃣ Environment Preparation

  1. Deployed an Ubuntu Linux virtual machine using VirtualBox / VMware
  2. Ensured SSH service was running to generate authentication events
  3. Confirmed logging via /var/log/auth.log

2️⃣ Incident Simulation

  1. Generated multiple failed SSH login attempts by:
  2. Attempting SSH access with incorrect passwords
  3. Using invalid and valid usernames
  4. This activity simulated potential brute-force behavior

3️⃣ Log Identification

  1. Verified log updates using: sudo tail -n 20 /var/log/auth.log

4️⃣ Log Filtering & Analysis

sudo tail -n 50 /var/log/auth.log | grep -i "failed password"

Real-Time Monitoring (Optional)

  1. Monitored authentication logs live using:

sudo tail -f /var/log/auth.log

  1. Observed logs updating during additional failed login attempts

  2. Evidence Collection

Captured screenshots of:

  1. Terminal overview

  2. Filtered failed login output