Windows 2000 users accounts get locked out

  • Thread starter Thread starter Merrick
  • Start date Start date
M

Merrick

Hi guys! thanks for the help. I have scan my firewall as
suggested by Steven and all my ports are secured. I have
also increase my password threashold to 10 minutes. I have
patched all my software for my servers and users. All my
users are using Windows 2000 only. I have also rename my
administrator for my server. I have downloaded EventCombMT
from MS and managed to search all my events log. I have a
long list of event ID: 644. Yet when i go through the list
I still don't understand why my users are getting locked
out! This happened suddenly and I have never changed any
thing to my servers. My accounts is still getting locked
out and yet I still dont know why! Please help. Many
thanks in advance!
Merrick
 
Hi again Merrick.

If you have not done such, set your account lockout threshhold for number of
bad attempts to at least ten. You should be seeing failed logon attempts
such as Event ID 529 on some computers in the domain. These failed logons
could be on any computer in the domain - not just domain controllers. Be
sure you have auditing of "logon events" for failure which is different than
account logon events enabled in Domain Security Policy and Domain Controller
Security Policy. You may also need to configure it at the OU level if you
are using Organizational Units with their own Group Policies that have
auditing disabled. You can check the Local Security Policy of any domain
computer and look at the "effective" settings for auditing to see if it is
enabled. Those failed logon events will give a lot of helpful info on why
the logons are failing and from what computers the logon attempts are coming
from.

In addition I would run some diagnostics on the domain controller and then a
couple domain computers. First run netdiag on the domain controller looking
for any failed tests/errors/warnings particularly relating to dns, domain
membership, and dclist. Then run dcdiag on the domain controller looking for
failed tests again. After that do the same with netdiag on one of the domain
members. On the domain controller and domain member run " netdiag
/test:ipsec " which will show if an ipsec policy is assigned that can cause
problems in a domain. You can post results here in a reply if any problems
are found. Those tools are found on the install cdrom in the support/tools
folder where you will need to run the setup there. -- Steve
 
Hi Steve,
You have been a great help! I really appreciated it. As to
my problem:
1.) I have disabled my accounts lockout policy in my
domain contoller security policy but i still get accounts
locked out, yes the administrator is always locked out.
2.) I have included 644 and 642 in my eventcomb and for
every 644 i got one 642. MS provide very little
information on 642 and am still trying to gather
information on that. it seems like my secure channel is
leaking.
3.) I have also planted alockout.dll in one of my clients
and one particular line is worrying me: C:\WINNT\system32
\svchost,***StartServiceW Failed!*** (0), Service:
Service: Background Intelligent Transfer Service
(C:\WINNT\System32\svchost.exe -k BITSgroup), RC was:
Incorrect function. (1), GLE was: Overlapped I/O
operation is in progress. (997): Any comment?

Hope you can help! Many Thanks in advance!
 
Event ID 642 will be recorded with every Event ID 644 -- that is normal. If you want
to modify password/lockout policy you have to do it at the domain level which would
be "Domain Security Policy" in a default installation - it will NOT work if you do it
in Domain Controller Security Policy.

Have you found any failed logon event ID's on any domain computer? That is the place
to start to track down the problem to see if you have an infected machine or what.
The error for ,***StartServiceW Failed!*** would only be pertinent if you found that
on a computer experiencing account lockouts AND the lockout time corresponded to the
time for that event in the alockout.dll log.

Have you had a chance to run netdiag and dcdiag on the domain controller and netdiag
on a domain client? If so did the results look good or were there any reported
problems? --- Steve
 
Hi Steve and serverguy

Great help!
Yes i did a netdiag and seems ok but dcdiag generated some
errors: one of which: "[warning] The DNS host name 'xxx'
valid only on Windows 2000 DNS servers. [DNS_ERROR-NON-
RFC_NAME], [WARNING] Cannot find a primary authoriatative
DNS server for the name 'xxxx' may not be registered in
DNS"
Managed to read up some issues and rerun dcdiag and
cleared all the erros. Still my accounts get locked out.
The worst is my event log from eventcomp shows that my
valid users are being locked out by all sorts of foreign
manchine name, one of which is this:
644,AUDIT SUCCESS,Security,Fri May 21 16:06:46 2004,NT
AUTHORITY\SYSTEM,User Account Locked Out: Target
Account Name: "valid user id" Target Account ID: %
("numbers") Caller Machine Name: ANGEL Caller User
Name: "my servername"$

The Caller Machine Name: Angel is a remote machine name in
my network. I have no idea what is that! A few others
Caller Machine Name are PROXYSRV, GNSERVER, SERVIDOR ..??
what are those!?. Am trying to scan all my users for virus
now.

Thanks for helping !
Regards
Liew
-----Original Message-----
Event ID 642 will be recorded with every Event ID 644 -- that is normal. If you want
to modify password/lockout policy you have to do it at the domain level which would
be "Domain Security Policy" in a default installation - it will NOT work if you do it
in Domain Controller Security Policy.

Have you found any failed logon event ID's on any domain computer? That is the place
to start to track down the problem to see if you have an infected machine or what.
The error for ,***StartServiceW Failed!*** would only be pertinent if you found that
on a computer experiencing account lockouts AND the
lockout time corresponded to the
 
Hi Merrick.

You say that those machines are on your network or not?? Can you ping those machines
by their name and get a response? The caller machine is the name of the machine that
the user was attempting to logon from at the time of the lockout. If those computers
are on your network, you need to find out why they are trying to logon as your users,
such as a virus infection. If they are not from your network then how are they
getting access? You said your firewall is configured correctly? Is your firewall
allowing any access from the internet such as a web site, vpn, or Terminal Services?
The event ID displays what user is locked out and from what machine but if you can
find any failures for logons on any domain machine such as 681 or 529, that would be
helpful as it will help determine what domain computers are being targeted for these
failed logon attempts and then you could use a packet sniffer such as Ethereal to
monitor the traffic from the machine causing the lockout to possibly help determine
what is going on.. --- Steve

Merrick said:
Hi Steve and serverguy

Great help!
Yes i did a netdiag and seems ok but dcdiag generated some
errors: one of which: "[warning] The DNS host name 'xxx'
valid only on Windows 2000 DNS servers. [DNS_ERROR-NON-
RFC_NAME], [WARNING] Cannot find a primary authoriatative
DNS server for the name 'xxxx' may not be registered in
DNS"
Managed to read up some issues and rerun dcdiag and
cleared all the erros. Still my accounts get locked out.
The worst is my event log from eventcomp shows that my
valid users are being locked out by all sorts of foreign
manchine name, one of which is this:
644,AUDIT SUCCESS,Security,Fri May 21 16:06:46 2004,NT
AUTHORITY\SYSTEM,User Account Locked Out: Target
Account Name: "valid user id" Target Account ID: %
("numbers") Caller Machine Name: ANGEL Caller User
Name: "my servername"$

The Caller Machine Name: Angel is a remote machine name in
my network. I have no idea what is that! A few others
Caller Machine Name are PROXYSRV, GNSERVER, SERVIDOR ..??
what are those!?. Am trying to scan all my users for virus
now.

Thanks for helping !
Regards
Liew
-----Original Message-----
Event ID 642 will be recorded with every Event ID 644 -- that is normal. If you want
to modify password/lockout policy you have to do it at the domain level which would
be "Domain Security Policy" in a default installation - it will NOT work if you do it
in Domain Controller Security Policy.

Have you found any failed logon event ID's on any domain computer? That is the place
to start to track down the problem to see if you have an infected machine or what.
The error for ,***StartServiceW Failed!*** would only be pertinent if you found that
on a computer experiencing account lockouts AND the
lockout time corresponded to the
time for that event in the alockout.dll log.

Have you had a chance to run netdiag and dcdiag on the domain controller and netdiag
on a domain client? If so did the results look good or were there any reported
problems? --- Steve




.
 
Hi Steve
Those machine names I mentioned are not in my network. I
have no idea why my users which are valid and the network
domain name which is also valid were locked out from funny
machine names! I have tried to capture 529 and 681 but my
eventcomb did not managed to find any of those errors.
As for my firewall, I have tried to scan them from outside
and my ports are blocked.
One thing for sure is when all my users are gone for the
day, no more locked out happen. But once they are back for
work, the locked out happens again. Apparently the locked
out issues were not someone trying to come in from beyond
my firewall.
I am still trying to figure out where the locked out
happen. Thanks for the help though!

have a great weekend!
-----Original Message-----
Hi Merrick.

You say that those machines are on your network or not?? Can you ping those machines
by their name and get a response? The caller machine is the name of the machine that
the user was attempting to logon from at the time of the lockout. If those computers
are on your network, you need to find out why they are trying to logon as your users,
such as a virus infection. If they are not from your network then how are they
getting access? You said your firewall is configured correctly? Is your firewall
allowing any access from the internet such as a web site, vpn, or Terminal Services?
The event ID displays what user is locked out and from what machine but if you can
find any failures for logons on any domain machine such as 681 or 529, that would be
helpful as it will help determine what domain computers are being targeted for these
failed logon attempts and then you could use a packet sniffer such as Ethereal to
monitor the traffic from the machine causing the lockout to possibly help determine
what is going on.. --- Steve

Hi Steve and serverguy

Great help!
Yes i did a netdiag and seems ok but dcdiag generated some
errors: one of which: "[warning] The DNS host name 'xxx'
valid only on Windows 2000 DNS servers. [DNS_ERROR-NON-
RFC_NAME], [WARNING] Cannot find a primary authoriatative
DNS server for the name 'xxxx' may not be registered in
DNS"
Managed to read up some issues and rerun dcdiag and
cleared all the erros. Still my accounts get locked out.
The worst is my event log from eventcomp shows that my
valid users are being locked out by all sorts of foreign
manchine name, one of which is this:
644,AUDIT SUCCESS,Security,Fri May 21 16:06:46 2004,NT
AUTHORITY\SYSTEM,User Account Locked Out: Target
Account Name: "valid user id" Target Account ID: %
("numbers") Caller Machine Name: ANGEL Caller User
Name: "my servername"$

The Caller Machine Name: Angel is a remote machine name in
my network. I have no idea what is that! A few others
Caller Machine Name are PROXYSRV, GNSERVER, SERVIDOR ..??
what are those!?. Am trying to scan all my users for virus
now.

Thanks for helping !
Regards
Liew
-----Original Message-----
Event ID 642 will be recorded with every Event ID 644 -
-
that is normal. If you want
to modify password/lockout policy you have to do it at the domain level which would
be "Domain Security Policy" in a default installation - it will NOT work if you do it
in Domain Controller Security Policy.

Have you found any failed logon event ID's on any
domain
computer? That is the place
to start to track down the problem to see if you have
an
infected machine or what.
The error for ,***StartServiceW Failed!*** would only
be
pertinent if you found that
on a computer experiencing account lockouts AND the
lockout time corresponded to the
time for that event in the alockout.dll log.

Have you had a chance to run netdiag and dcdiag on the domain controller and netdiag
on a domain client? If so did the results look good or were there any reported
problems? --- Steve

"Merrick" <[email protected]> wrote
in
message
Hi Steve,
You have been a great help! I really appreciated it.
As
to
my problem:
1.) I have disabled my accounts lockout policy in my
domain contoller security policy but i still get accounts
locked out, yes the administrator is always locked out.
2.) I have included 644 and 642 in my eventcomb and for
every 644 i got one 642. MS provide very little
information on 642 and am still trying to gather
information on that. it seems like my secure channel is
leaking.
3.) I have also planted alockout.dll in one of my clients
and one particular line is worrying me: C:\WINNT\system32
\svchost,***StartServiceW Failed!*** (0), Service:
Service: Background Intelligent Transfer Service
(C:\WINNT\System32\svchost.exe -k BITSgroup), RC was:
Incorrect function. (1), GLE was: Overlapped I/O
operation is in progress. (997): Any comment?

Hope you can help! Many Thanks in advance!


-----Original Message-----
Hi again Merrick.

If you have not done such, set your account lockout
threshhold for number of
bad attempts to at least ten. You should be seeing failed
logon attempts
such as Event ID 529 on some computers in the domain.
These failed logons
could be on any computer in the domain - not just domain
controllers. Be
sure you have auditing of "logon events" for failure
which is different than
account logon events enabled in Domain Security Policy
and Domain Controller
Security Policy. You may also need to configure it
at
the
OU level if you
are using Organizational Units with their own Group
Policies that have
auditing disabled. You can check the Local Security
Policy of any domain
computer and look at the "effective" settings for
auditing to see if it is
enabled. Those failed logon events will give a lot of
helpful info on why
the logons are failing and from what computers the logon
attempts are coming
from.

In addition I would run some diagnostics on the domain
controller and then a
couple domain computers. First run netdiag on the domain
controller looking
for any failed tests/errors/warnings particularly
relating to dns, domain
membership, and dclist. Then run dcdiag on the domain
controller looking for
failed tests again. After that do the same with netdiag
on one of the domain
members. On the domain controller and domain member run "
netdiag
/test:ipsec " which will show if an ipsec policy is
assigned that can cause
problems in a domain. You can post results here in a
reply if any problems
are found. Those tools are found on the install
cdrom
in
the support/tools
folder where you will need to run the setup
there. --
wrote
in
message
Hi guys! thanks for the help. I have scan my firewall as
suggested by Steven and all my ports are secured.
I
have
also increase my password threashold to 10 minutes. I
have
patched all my software for my servers and users. All my
users are using Windows 2000 only. I have also rename my
administrator for my server. I have downloaded
EventCombMT
from MS and managed to search all my events log. I have
a
long list of event ID: 644. Yet when i go through the
list
I still don't understand why my users are getting locked
out! This happened suddenly and I have never
changed
any
thing to my servers. My accounts is still getting locked
out and yet I still dont know why! Please help. Many
thanks in advance!
Merrick


.



.


.
 
Hi Merrick.

Typically that sounds like an outside the network attack from attackers that
were able to enumerate your users via file and print sharing ports somewhere
along the line. You say it does not happen when the users go home. If they
shut down their machines either the machine causing the attack is shut down
or the machine being attacked is shut down. One thing you might want to
consider is the possibility a machine on your network has a backdoor into
your network via a trojan or remote control software which may not be
detected by virus scan software and would require a program dedicated to
finding trojans such as those in the links below. I am surprised that you
are not finding any Event ID 529 or 681 if auditng of failed logon events is
enabled on all computers. You also may want to look into debug logging of
netlogon as described a while back. Ideally you also want your perimiter
firewall configured with a default block all outbound rule and then create
exceptions for the authorized oubound traffic [53/80/443 and such] which can
help prevent successful remote control attacks --- Steve

http://swatit.org/download.html
http://www.pestpatrol.com/PestPatrolSBE/

Merrick said:
Hi Steve
Those machine names I mentioned are not in my network. I
have no idea why my users which are valid and the network
domain name which is also valid were locked out from funny
machine names! I have tried to capture 529 and 681 but my
eventcomb did not managed to find any of those errors.
As for my firewall, I have tried to scan them from outside
and my ports are blocked.
One thing for sure is when all my users are gone for the
day, no more locked out happen. But once they are back for
work, the locked out happens again. Apparently the locked
out issues were not someone trying to come in from beyond
my firewall.
I am still trying to figure out where the locked out
happen. Thanks for the help though!

have a great weekend!
-----Original Message-----
Hi Merrick.

You say that those machines are on your network or not?? Can you ping those machines
by their name and get a response? The caller machine is the name of the machine that
the user was attempting to logon from at the time of the lockout. If those computers
are on your network, you need to find out why they are trying to logon as your users,
such as a virus infection. If they are not from your network then how are they
getting access? You said your firewall is configured correctly? Is your firewall
allowing any access from the internet such as a web site, vpn, or Terminal Services?
The event ID displays what user is locked out and from what machine but if you can
find any failures for logons on any domain machine such as 681 or 529, that would be
helpful as it will help determine what domain computers are being targeted for these
failed logon attempts and then you could use a packet sniffer such as Ethereal to
monitor the traffic from the machine causing the lockout to possibly help determine
what is going on.. --- Steve

Hi Steve and serverguy

Great help!
Yes i did a netdiag and seems ok but dcdiag generated some
errors: one of which: "[warning] The DNS host name 'xxx'
valid only on Windows 2000 DNS servers. [DNS_ERROR-NON-
RFC_NAME], [WARNING] Cannot find a primary authoriatative
DNS server for the name 'xxxx' may not be registered in
DNS"
Managed to read up some issues and rerun dcdiag and
cleared all the erros. Still my accounts get locked out.
The worst is my event log from eventcomp shows that my
valid users are being locked out by all sorts of foreign
manchine name, one of which is this:
644,AUDIT SUCCESS,Security,Fri May 21 16:06:46 2004,NT
AUTHORITY\SYSTEM,User Account Locked Out: Target
Account Name: "valid user id" Target Account ID: %
("numbers") Caller Machine Name: ANGEL Caller User
Name: "my servername"$

The Caller Machine Name: Angel is a remote machine name in
my network. I have no idea what is that! A few others
Caller Machine Name are PROXYSRV, GNSERVER, SERVIDOR ..??
what are those!?. Am trying to scan all my users for virus
now.

Thanks for helping !
Regards
Liew

-----Original Message-----
Event ID 642 will be recorded with every Event ID 644 - -
that is normal. If you want
to modify password/lockout policy you have to do it at
the domain level which would
be "Domain Security Policy" in a default installation -
it will NOT work if you do it
in Domain Controller Security Policy.

Have you found any failed logon event ID's on any domain
computer? That is the place
to start to track down the problem to see if you have an
infected machine or what.
The error for ,***StartServiceW Failed!*** would only be
pertinent if you found that
on a computer experiencing account lockouts AND the
lockout time corresponded to the
time for that event in the alockout.dll log.

Have you had a chance to run netdiag and dcdiag on the
domain controller and netdiag
on a domain client? If so did the results look good or
were there any reported
problems? --- Steve

message
Hi Steve,
You have been a great help! I really appreciated it. As
to
my problem:
1.) I have disabled my accounts lockout policy in my
domain contoller security policy but i still get
accounts
locked out, yes the administrator is always locked out.
2.) I have included 644 and 642 in my eventcomb and for
every 644 i got one 642. MS provide very little
information on 642 and am still trying to gather
information on that. it seems like my secure channel is
leaking.
3.) I have also planted alockout.dll in one of my
clients
and one particular line is worrying me:
C:\WINNT\system32
\svchost,***StartServiceW Failed!*** (0), Service:
Service: Background Intelligent Transfer Service
(C:\WINNT\System32\svchost.exe -k BITSgroup), RC was:
Incorrect function. (1), GLE was: Overlapped I/O
operation is in progress. (997): Any comment?

Hope you can help! Many Thanks in advance!


-----Original Message-----
Hi again Merrick.

If you have not done such, set your account lockout
threshhold for number of
bad attempts to at least ten. You should be seeing
failed
logon attempts
such as Event ID 529 on some computers in the domain.
These failed logons
could be on any computer in the domain - not just
domain
controllers. Be
sure you have auditing of "logon events" for failure
which is different than
account logon events enabled in Domain Security Policy
and Domain Controller
Security Policy. You may also need to configure it at
the
OU level if you
are using Organizational Units with their own Group
Policies that have
auditing disabled. You can check the Local Security
Policy of any domain
computer and look at the "effective" settings for
auditing to see if it is
enabled. Those failed logon events will give a lot of
helpful info on why
the logons are failing and from what computers the
logon
attempts are coming
from.

In addition I would run some diagnostics on the domain
controller and then a
couple domain computers. First run netdiag on the
domain
controller looking
for any failed tests/errors/warnings particularly
relating to dns, domain
membership, and dclist. Then run dcdiag on the domain
controller looking for
failed tests again. After that do the same with netdiag
on one of the domain
members. On the domain controller and domain member
run "
netdiag
/test:ipsec " which will show if an ipsec policy is
assigned that can cause
problems in a domain. You can post results here in a
reply if any problems
are found. Those tools are found on the install cdrom
in
the support/tools
folder where you will need to run the setup there. --

Steve


in
message
Hi guys! thanks for the help. I have scan my
firewall as
suggested by Steven and all my ports are secured. I
have
also increase my password threashold to 10 minutes. I
have
patched all my software for my servers and users.
All my
users are using Windows 2000 only. I have also
rename my
administrator for my server. I have downloaded
EventCombMT
from MS and managed to search all my events log. I
have
a
long list of event ID: 644. Yet when i go through the
list
I still don't understand why my users are getting
locked
out! This happened suddenly and I have never changed
any
thing to my servers. My accounts is still getting
locked
out and yet I still dont know why! Please help. Many
thanks in advance!
Merrick


.



.


.
 
Hi Steve,

I really appreciated your patience and help. After weeks
of trouble shooting, I think I am zooming down to the
source. Yes, it looks like a trojan that came into my
servers or our users PC.
I managed to stablised the condition by cleaning each
individual PC and it seems to be helping for now.
Will check out the links and will strengthen the
protection as suggested. You have been a great help!

Will update you once i have managed to control the
situation. !!
Regards
Merrick
-----Original Message-----
Hi Merrick.

Typically that sounds like an outside the network attack from attackers that
were able to enumerate your users via file and print sharing ports somewhere
along the line. You say it does not happen when the users go home. If they
shut down their machines either the machine causing the attack is shut down
or the machine being attacked is shut down. One thing you might want to
consider is the possibility a machine on your network has a backdoor into
your network via a trojan or remote control software which may not be
detected by virus scan software and would require a program dedicated to
finding trojans such as those in the links below. I am surprised that you
are not finding any Event ID 529 or 681 if auditng of failed logon events is
enabled on all computers. You also may want to look into debug logging of
netlogon as described a while back. Ideally you also want your perimiter
firewall configured with a default block all outbound rule and then create
exceptions for the authorized oubound traffic [53/80/443 and such] which can
help prevent successful remote control attacks --- Steve

http://swatit.org/download.html
http://www.pestpatrol.com/PestPatrolSBE/

Hi Steve
Those machine names I mentioned are not in my network. I
have no idea why my users which are valid and the network
domain name which is also valid were locked out from funny
machine names! I have tried to capture 529 and 681 but my
eventcomb did not managed to find any of those errors.
As for my firewall, I have tried to scan them from outside
and my ports are blocked.
One thing for sure is when all my users are gone for the
day, no more locked out happen. But once they are back for
work, the locked out happens again. Apparently the locked
out issues were not someone trying to come in from beyond
my firewall.
I am still trying to figure out where the locked out
happen. Thanks for the help though!

have a great weekend!
-----Original Message-----
Hi Merrick.

You say that those machines are on your network or
not??
Can you ping those machines
by their name and get a response? The caller machine is the name of the machine that
the user was attempting to logon from at the time of
the
lockout. If those computers
are on your network, you need to find out why they are trying to logon as your users,
such as a virus infection. If they are not from your network then how are they
getting access? You said your firewall is configured correctly? Is your firewall
allowing any access from the internet such as a web
site,
vpn, or Terminal Services?
The event ID displays what user is locked out and from what machine but if you can
find any failures for logons on any domain machine such as 681 or 529, that would be
helpful as it will help determine what domain computers are being targeted for these
failed logon attempts and then you could use a packet sniffer such as Ethereal to
monitor the traffic from the machine causing the
lockout
to possibly help determine
what is going on.. --- Steve

"Merrick" <[email protected]> wrote
in
message
Hi Steve and serverguy

Great help!
Yes i did a netdiag and seems ok but dcdiag generated some
errors: one of which: "[warning] The DNS host name 'xxx'
valid only on Windows 2000 DNS servers. [DNS_ERROR- NON-
RFC_NAME], [WARNING] Cannot find a primary authoriatative
DNS server for the name 'xxxx' may not be registered in
DNS"
Managed to read up some issues and rerun dcdiag and
cleared all the erros. Still my accounts get locked out.
The worst is my event log from eventcomp shows that my
valid users are being locked out by all sorts of foreign
manchine name, one of which is this:
644,AUDIT SUCCESS,Security,Fri May 21 16:06:46 2004,NT
AUTHORITY\SYSTEM,User Account Locked Out: Target
Account Name: "valid user id" Target Account ID: %
("numbers") Caller Machine Name: ANGEL Caller User
Name: "my servername"$

The Caller Machine Name: Angel is a remote machine
name
in
my network. I have no idea what is that! A few others
Caller Machine Name are PROXYSRV, GNSERVER, SERVIDOR ..??
what are those!?. Am trying to scan all my users for virus
now.

Thanks for helping !
Regards
Liew

-----Original Message-----
Event ID 642 will be recorded with every Event ID
644 -
-
that is normal. If you want
to modify password/lockout policy you have to do it at
the domain level which would
be "Domain Security Policy" in a default installation -
it will NOT work if you do it
in Domain Controller Security Policy.

Have you found any failed logon event ID's on any domain
computer? That is the place
to start to track down the problem to see if you
have
an
infected machine or what.
The error for ,***StartServiceW Failed!*** would
only
be
pertinent if you found that
on a computer experiencing account lockouts AND the
lockout time corresponded to the
time for that event in the alockout.dll log.

Have you had a chance to run netdiag and dcdiag on the
domain controller and netdiag
on a domain client? If so did the results look good or
were there any reported
problems? --- Steve

"Merrick" <[email protected]>
wrote
in
message
Hi Steve,
You have been a great help! I really appreciated
it.
As
to
my problem:
1.) I have disabled my accounts lockout policy in my
domain contoller security policy but i still get
accounts
locked out, yes the administrator is always locked out.
2.) I have included 644 and 642 in my eventcomb
and
for
every 644 i got one 642. MS provide very little
information on 642 and am still trying to gather
information on that. it seems like my secure
channel
is
leaking.
3.) I have also planted alockout.dll in one of my
clients
and one particular line is worrying me:
C:\WINNT\system32
\svchost,***StartServiceW Failed!*** (0), Service:
Service: Background Intelligent Transfer Service
(C:\WINNT\System32\svchost.exe -k BITSgroup), RC was:
Incorrect function. (1), GLE was: Overlapped I/O
operation is in progress. (997): Any comment?

Hope you can help! Many Thanks in advance!


-----Original Message-----
Hi again Merrick.

If you have not done such, set your account lockout
threshhold for number of
bad attempts to at least ten. You should be seeing
failed
logon attempts
such as Event ID 529 on some computers in the domain.
These failed logons
could be on any computer in the domain - not just
domain
controllers. Be
sure you have auditing of "logon events" for failure
which is different than
account logon events enabled in Domain Security Policy
and Domain Controller
Security Policy. You may also need to configure
it
at
the
OU level if you
are using Organizational Units with their own Group
Policies that have
auditing disabled. You can check the Local Security
Policy of any domain
computer and look at the "effective" settings for
auditing to see if it is
enabled. Those failed logon events will give a
lot
of
helpful info on why
the logons are failing and from what computers the
logon
attempts are coming
from.

In addition I would run some diagnostics on the domain
controller and then a
couple domain computers. First run netdiag on the
domain
controller looking
for any failed tests/errors/warnings particularly
relating to dns, domain
membership, and dclist. Then run dcdiag on the domain
controller looking for
failed tests again. After that do the same with netdiag
on one of the domain
members. On the domain controller and domain member
run "
netdiag
/test:ipsec " which will show if an ipsec policy is
assigned that can cause
problems in a domain. You can post results here in a
reply if any problems
are found. Those tools are found on the install cdrom
in
the support/tools
folder where you will need to run the setup there. --

Steve


in
message
Hi guys! thanks for the help. I have scan my
firewall as
suggested by Steven and all my ports are
secured.
I
have
also increase my password threashold to 10 minutes. I
have
patched all my software for my servers and users.
All my
users are using Windows 2000 only. I have also
rename my
administrator for my server. I have downloaded
EventCombMT
from MS and managed to search all my events log. I
have
a
long list of event ID: 644. Yet when i go
through
the
list
I still don't understand why my users are getting
locked
out! This happened suddenly and I have never changed
any
thing to my servers. My accounts is still getting
locked
out and yet I still dont know why! Please help. Many
thanks in advance!
Merrick


.



.



.


.
 
Hey Steve
After going through the nightmares, and I found i got a
simple problem which most of us have ignored the warning!
Just block the 135,137,139 and 445 and all my problems are
gone!
Regards
Merrick
-----Original Message-----
Hi Steve,

I really appreciated your patience and help. After weeks
of trouble shooting, I think I am zooming down to the
source. Yes, it looks like a trojan that came into my
servers or our users PC.
I managed to stablised the condition by cleaning each
individual PC and it seems to be helping for now.
Will check out the links and will strengthen the
protection as suggested. You have been a great help!

Will update you once i have managed to control the
situation. !!
Regards
Merrick
-----Original Message-----
Hi Merrick.

Typically that sounds like an outside the network attack from attackers that
were able to enumerate your users via file and print sharing ports somewhere
along the line. You say it does not happen when the
users
go home. If they
shut down their machines either the machine causing the attack is shut down
or the machine being attacked is shut down. One thing
you
might want to
consider is the possibility a machine on your network
has
a backdoor into
your network via a trojan or remote control software which may not be
detected by virus scan software and would require a program dedicated to
finding trojans such as those in the links below. I am surprised that you
are not finding any Event ID 529 or 681 if auditng of failed logon events is
enabled on all computers. You also may want to look into debug logging of
netlogon as described a while back. Ideally you also want your perimiter
firewall configured with a default block all outbound rule and then create
exceptions for the authorized oubound traffic [53/80/443 and such] which can
help prevent successful remote control attacks --- Steve

http://swatit.org/download.html
http://www.pestpatrol.com/PestPatrolSBE/

Hi Steve
Those machine names I mentioned are not in my network. I
have no idea why my users which are valid and the network
domain name which is also valid were locked out from funny
machine names! I have tried to capture 529 and 681 but my
eventcomb did not managed to find any of those errors.
As for my firewall, I have tried to scan them from outside
and my ports are blocked.
One thing for sure is when all my users are gone for the
day, no more locked out happen. But once they are back for
work, the locked out happens again. Apparently the locked
out issues were not someone trying to come in from beyond
my firewall.
I am still trying to figure out where the locked out
happen. Thanks for the help though!

have a great weekend!

-----Original Message-----
Hi Merrick.

You say that those machines are on your network or not??
Can you ping those machines
by their name and get a response? The caller machine is
the name of the machine that
the user was attempting to logon from at the time of the
lockout. If those computers
are on your network, you need to find out why they are
trying to logon as your users,
such as a virus infection. If they are not from your
network then how are they
getting access? You said your firewall is configured
correctly? Is your firewall
allowing any access from the internet such as a web site,
vpn, or Terminal Services?
The event ID displays what user is locked out and from
what machine but if you can
find any failures for logons on any domain machine such
as 681 or 529, that would be
helpful as it will help determine what domain computers
are being targeted for these
failed logon attempts and then you could use a packet
sniffer such as Ethereal to
monitor the traffic from the machine causing the lockout
to possibly help determine
what is going on.. --- Steve

message
Hi Steve and serverguy

Great help!
Yes i did a netdiag and seems ok but dcdiag generated
some
errors: one of which: "[warning] The DNS host name 'xxx'
valid only on Windows 2000 DNS servers. [DNS_ERROR- NON-
RFC_NAME], [WARNING] Cannot find a primary
authoriatative
DNS server for the name 'xxxx' may not be
registered
ID:
it
good
in
policy
.
 
Hi Merrick.

I think I mentioned testing your firewall initially and a self scan at
Sygate should have warned you about that. Having netbios/file and print
sharing ports open to the internet can certainly cause such a problem. Glad
you got it fixed! --- Steve


Merrick said:
Hey Steve
After going through the nightmares, and I found i got a
simple problem which most of us have ignored the warning!
Just block the 135,137,139 and 445 and all my problems are
gone!
Regards
Merrick
-----Original Message-----
Hi Steve,

I really appreciated your patience and help. After weeks
of trouble shooting, I think I am zooming down to the
source. Yes, it looks like a trojan that came into my
servers or our users PC.
I managed to stablised the condition by cleaning each
individual PC and it seems to be helping for now.
Will check out the links and will strengthen the
protection as suggested. You have been a great help!

Will update you once i have managed to control the
situation. !!
Regards
Merrick
-----Original Message-----
Hi Merrick.

Typically that sounds like an outside the network attack from attackers that
were able to enumerate your users via file and print sharing ports somewhere
along the line. You say it does not happen when the
users
go home. If they
shut down their machines either the machine causing the attack is shut down
or the machine being attacked is shut down. One thing
you
might want to
consider is the possibility a machine on your network
has
a backdoor into
your network via a trojan or remote control software which may not be
detected by virus scan software and would require a program dedicated to
finding trojans such as those in the links below. I am surprised that you
are not finding any Event ID 529 or 681 if auditng of failed logon events is
enabled on all computers. You also may want to look into debug logging of
netlogon as described a while back. Ideally you also want your perimiter
firewall configured with a default block all outbound rule and then create
exceptions for the authorized oubound traffic [53/80/443 and such] which can
help prevent successful remote control attacks --- Steve

http://swatit.org/download.html
http://www.pestpatrol.com/PestPatrolSBE/

Hi Steve
Those machine names I mentioned are not in my network. I
have no idea why my users which are valid and the network
domain name which is also valid were locked out from funny
machine names! I have tried to capture 529 and 681 but my
eventcomb did not managed to find any of those errors.
As for my firewall, I have tried to scan them from outside
and my ports are blocked.
One thing for sure is when all my users are gone for the
day, no more locked out happen. But once they are back for
work, the locked out happens again. Apparently the locked
out issues were not someone trying to come in from beyond
my firewall.
I am still trying to figure out where the locked out
happen. Thanks for the help though!

have a great weekend!

-----Original Message-----
Hi Merrick.

You say that those machines are on your network or not??
Can you ping those machines
by their name and get a response? The caller machine is
the name of the machine that
the user was attempting to logon from at the time of the
lockout. If those computers
are on your network, you need to find out why they are
trying to logon as your users,
such as a virus infection. If they are not from your
network then how are they
getting access? You said your firewall is configured
correctly? Is your firewall
allowing any access from the internet such as a web site,
vpn, or Terminal Services?
The event ID displays what user is locked out and from
what machine but if you can
find any failures for logons on any domain machine such
as 681 or 529, that would be
helpful as it will help determine what domain computers
are being targeted for these
failed logon attempts and then you could use a packet
sniffer such as Ethereal to
monitor the traffic from the machine causing the lockout
to possibly help determine
what is going on.. --- Steve

message
Hi Steve and serverguy

Great help!
Yes i did a netdiag and seems ok but dcdiag generated
some
errors: one of which: "[warning] The DNS host name 'xxx'
valid only on Windows 2000 DNS servers. [DNS_ERROR- NON-
RFC_NAME], [WARNING] Cannot find a primary
authoriatative
DNS server for the name 'xxxx' may not be
registered
in
DNS"
Managed to read up some issues and rerun dcdiag and
cleared all the erros. Still my accounts get locked out.
The worst is my event log from eventcomp shows that my
valid users are being locked out by all sorts of foreign
manchine name, one of which is this:
644,AUDIT SUCCESS,Security,Fri May 21 16:06:46 2004,NT
AUTHORITY\SYSTEM,User Account Locked Out: Target
Account Name: "valid user id" Target Account
ID:
%
("numbers") Caller Machine Name: ANGEL Caller
User
Name: "my servername"$

The Caller Machine Name: Angel is a remote machine name
in
my network. I have no idea what is that! A few others
Caller Machine Name are PROXYSRV, GNSERVER,
SERVIDOR ..??
what are those!?. Am trying to scan all my users for
virus
now.

Thanks for helping !
Regards
Liew

-----Original Message-----
Event ID 642 will be recorded with every Event ID 644 -
-
that is normal. If you want
to modify password/lockout policy you have to do
it
at
the domain level which would
be "Domain Security Policy" in a default installation -
it will NOT work if you do it
in Domain Controller Security Policy.

Have you found any failed logon event ID's on any
domain
computer? That is the place
to start to track down the problem to see if you have
an
infected machine or what.
The error for ,***StartServiceW Failed!*** would only
be
pertinent if you found that
on a computer experiencing account lockouts AND the
lockout time corresponded to the
time for that event in the alockout.dll log.

Have you had a chance to run netdiag and dcdiag on the
domain controller and netdiag
on a domain client? If so did the results look
good
or
were there any reported
problems? --- Steve

in
message
Hi Steve,
You have been a great help! I really appreciated it.
As
to
my problem:
1.) I have disabled my accounts lockout policy
in
my
domain contoller security policy but i still get
accounts
locked out, yes the administrator is always locked
out.
2.) I have included 644 and 642 in my eventcomb and
for
every 644 i got one 642. MS provide very little
information on 642 and am still trying to gather
information on that. it seems like my secure channel
is
leaking.
3.) I have also planted alockout.dll in one of my
clients
and one particular line is worrying me:
C:\WINNT\system32
\svchost,***StartServiceW Failed!*** (0), Service:
Service: Background Intelligent Transfer Service
(C:\WINNT\System32\svchost.exe -k BITSgroup), RC was:
Incorrect function. (1), GLE was: Overlapped I/O
operation is in progress. (997): Any comment?

Hope you can help! Many Thanks in advance!


-----Original Message-----
Hi again Merrick.

If you have not done such, set your account lockout
threshhold for number of
bad attempts to at least ten. You should be seeing
failed
logon attempts
such as Event ID 529 on some computers in the
domain.
These failed logons
could be on any computer in the domain - not just
domain
controllers. Be
sure you have auditing of "logon events" for failure
which is different than
account logon events enabled in Domain Security
Policy
and Domain Controller
Security Policy. You may also need to configure it
at
the
OU level if you
are using Organizational Units with their own Group
Policies that have
auditing disabled. You can check the Local Security
Policy of any domain
computer and look at the "effective" settings for
auditing to see if it is
enabled. Those failed logon events will give a lot
of
helpful info on why
the logons are failing and from what computers the
logon
attempts are coming
from.

In addition I would run some diagnostics on the
domain
controller and then a
couple domain computers. First run netdiag on the
domain
controller looking
for any failed tests/errors/warnings particularly
relating to dns, domain
membership, and dclist. Then run dcdiag on the
domain
controller looking for
failed tests again. After that do the same with
netdiag
on one of the domain
members. On the domain controller and domain member
run "
netdiag
/test:ipsec " which will show if an ipsec
policy
is
assigned that can cause
problems in a domain. You can post results here in a
reply if any problems
are found. Those tools are found on the install
cdrom
in
the support/tools
folder where you will need to run the setup
there. --

Steve


"Merrick" <[email protected]>
wrote
in
message
Hi guys! thanks for the help. I have scan my
firewall as
suggested by Steven and all my ports are secured.
I
have
also increase my password threashold to 10
minutes. I
have
patched all my software for my servers and users.
All my
users are using Windows 2000 only. I have also
rename my
administrator for my server. I have downloaded
EventCombMT
from MS and managed to search all my events log. I
have
a
long list of event ID: 644. Yet when i go through
the
list
I still don't understand why my users are getting
locked
out! This happened suddenly and I have never
changed
any
thing to my servers. My accounts is still getting
locked
out and yet I still dont know why! Please help.
Many
thanks in advance!
Merrick


.



.



.



.
.
 
Hey Steve

Really appreciated your help. I have done a self scan from
skygate..but the result was all my ports were blocked
except smtp and ping. Anyway, thanks for helping.
-----Original Message-----
Hi Merrick.

I think I mentioned testing your firewall initially and a self scan at
Sygate should have warned you about that. Having netbios/file and print
sharing ports open to the internet can certainly cause such a problem. Glad
you got it fixed! --- Steve


Hey Steve
After going through the nightmares, and I found i got a
simple problem which most of us have ignored the warning!
Just block the 135,137,139 and 445 and all my problems are
gone!
Regards
Merrick
-----Original Message-----
Hi Steve,

I really appreciated your patience and help. After weeks
of trouble shooting, I think I am zooming down to the
source. Yes, it looks like a trojan that came into my
servers or our users PC.
I managed to stablised the condition by cleaning each
individual PC and it seems to be helping for now.
Will check out the links and will strengthen the
protection as suggested. You have been a great help!

Will update you once i have managed to control the
situation. !!
Regards
Merrick
-----Original Message-----
Hi Merrick.

Typically that sounds like an outside the network attack
from attackers that
were able to enumerate your users via file and print
sharing ports somewhere
along the line. You say it does not happen when the users
go home. If they
shut down their machines either the machine causing the
attack is shut down
or the machine being attacked is shut down. One thing you
might want to
consider is the possibility a machine on your network has
a backdoor into
your network via a trojan or remote control software
which may not be
detected by virus scan software and would require a
program dedicated to
finding trojans such as those in the links below. I am
surprised that you
are not finding any Event ID 529 or 681 if auditng of
failed logon events is
enabled on all computers. You also may want to look into
debug logging of
netlogon as described a while back. Ideally you also
want your perimiter
firewall configured with a default block all outbound
rule and then create
exceptions for the authorized oubound traffic [53/80/443
and such] which can
help prevent successful remote control attacks --- Steve

http://swatit.org/download.html
http://www.pestpatrol.com/PestPatrolSBE/

message
Hi Steve
Those machine names I mentioned are not in my
network.
I
have no idea why my users which are valid and the
network
domain name which is also valid were locked out from
funny
machine names! I have tried to capture 529 and 681 but
my
eventcomb did not managed to find any of those errors.
As for my firewall, I have tried to scan them from
outside
and my ports are blocked.
One thing for sure is when all my users are gone for the
day, no more locked out happen. But once they are back
for
work, the locked out happens again. Apparently the
locked
out issues were not someone trying to come in from
beyond
my firewall.
I am still trying to figure out where the locked out
happen. Thanks for the help though!

have a great weekend!

-----Original Message-----
Hi Merrick.

You say that those machines are on your network or
not??
Can you ping those machines
by their name and get a response? The caller
machine
is
the name of the machine that
the user was attempting to logon from at the time of
the
lockout. If those computers
are on your network, you need to find out why they are
trying to logon as your users,
such as a virus infection. If they are not from your
network then how are they
getting access? You said your firewall is configured
correctly? Is your firewall
allowing any access from the internet such as a web
site,
vpn, or Terminal Services?
The event ID displays what user is locked out and from
what machine but if you can
find any failures for logons on any domain machine such
as 681 or 529, that would be
helpful as it will help determine what domain computers
are being targeted for these
failed logon attempts and then you could use a packet
sniffer such as Ethereal to
monitor the traffic from the machine causing the
lockout
to possibly help determine
what is going on.. --- Steve

in
message
Hi Steve and serverguy

Great help!
Yes i did a netdiag and seems ok but dcdiag generated
some
errors: one of which: "[warning] The DNS host
name 'xxx'
valid only on Windows 2000 DNS servers. [DNS_ERROR-
NON-
RFC_NAME], [WARNING] Cannot find a primary
authoriatative
DNS server for the name 'xxxx' may not be registered
in
DNS"
Managed to read up some issues and rerun dcdiag and
cleared all the erros. Still my accounts get locked
out.
The worst is my event log from eventcomp shows that
my
valid users are being locked out by all sorts of
foreign
manchine name, one of which is this:
644,AUDIT SUCCESS,Security,Fri May 21 16:06:46
2004,NT
AUTHORITY\SYSTEM,User Account Locked Out: Target
Account Name: "valid user id" Target Account ID:
%
("numbers") Caller Machine Name: ANGEL Caller
User
Name: "my servername"$

The Caller Machine Name: Angel is a remote machine
name
in
my network. I have no idea what is that! A few others
Caller Machine Name are PROXYSRV, GNSERVER,
SERVIDOR ..??
what are those!?. Am trying to scan all my users for
virus
now.

Thanks for helping !
Regards
Liew

-----Original Message-----
Event ID 642 will be recorded with every Event ID
644 -
-
that is normal. If you want
to modify password/lockout policy you have to do it
at
the domain level which would
be "Domain Security Policy" in a default
installation -
it will NOT work if you do it
in Domain Controller Security Policy.

Have you found any failed logon event ID's on any
domain
computer? That is the place
to start to track down the problem to see if you
have
an
infected machine or what.
The error for ,***StartServiceW Failed!*** would
only
be
pertinent if you found that
on a computer experiencing account lockouts AND the
lockout time corresponded to the
time for that event in the alockout.dll log.

Have you had a chance to run netdiag and dcdiag on
the
domain controller and netdiag
on a domain client? If so did the results look good
or
were there any reported
problems? --- Steve

"Merrick" <[email protected]>
wrote
in
message
Hi Steve,
You have been a great help! I really appreciated
it.
As
to
my problem:
1.) I have disabled my accounts lockout policy in
my
domain contoller security policy but i still get
accounts
locked out, yes the administrator is always locked
out.
2.) I have included 644 and 642 in my eventcomb
and
for
every 644 i got one 642. MS provide very little
information on 642 and am still trying to gather
information on that. it seems like my secure
channel
is
leaking.
3.) I have also planted alockout.dll in one of my
clients
and one particular line is worrying me:
C:\WINNT\system32
\svchost,***StartServiceW Failed!*** (0), Service:
Service: Background Intelligent Transfer Service
(C:\WINNT\System32\svchost.exe -k BITSgroup), RC
was:
Incorrect function. (1), GLE was: Overlapped I/O
operation is in progress. (997): Any comment?

Hope you can help! Many Thanks in advance!


-----Original Message-----
Hi again Merrick.

If you have not done such, set your account
lockout
threshhold for number of
bad attempts to at least ten. You should be
seeing
failed
logon attempts
such as Event ID 529 on some computers in the
domain.
These failed logons
could be on any computer in the domain - not just
domain
controllers. Be
sure you have auditing of "logon events" for
failure
which is different than
account logon events enabled in Domain Security
Policy
and Domain Controller
Security Policy. You may also need to configure
it
at
the
OU level if you
are using Organizational Units with their own
Group
Policies that have
auditing disabled. You can check the Local
Security
Policy of any domain
computer and look at the "effective" settings for
auditing to see if it is
enabled. Those failed logon events will give a
lot
of
helpful info on why
the logons are failing and from what computers
the
logon
attempts are coming
from.

In addition I would run some diagnostics on the
domain
controller and then a
couple domain computers. First run netdiag on the
domain
controller looking
for any failed tests/errors/warnings
particularly
relating to dns, domain
membership, and dclist. Then run dcdiag on the
domain
controller looking for
failed tests again. After that do the same with
netdiag
on one of the domain
members. On the domain controller and domain
member
run "
netdiag
/test:ipsec " which will show if an ipsec policy
is
assigned that can cause
problems in a domain. You can post results here
in a
reply if any problems
are found. Those tools are found on the install
cdrom
in
the support/tools
folder where you will need to run the setup
there. --

Steve


"Merrick"
wrote
in
message
[email protected]...
Hi guys! thanks for the help. I have scan my
firewall as
suggested by Steven and all my ports are
secured.
I
have
also increase my password threashold to 10
minutes. I
have
patched all my software for my servers and
users.
All my
users are using Windows 2000 only. I have also
rename my
administrator for my server. I have downloaded
EventCombMT
from MS and managed to search all my events
log. I
have
a
long list of event ID: 644. Yet when i go
through
the
list
I still don't understand why my users are
getting
locked
out! This happened suddenly and I have never
changed
any
thing to my servers. My accounts is still
getting
locked
out and yet I still dont know why! Please help.
Many
thanks in advance!
Merrick


.



.



.



.

.


.
 
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Top