Random Account Lockout (How to trace source?)

Question

In Windows 2003 server native domain environment: XP Pro machines have no issues, but all ~10 PCs that have Win7 Pro (in different offices) have their domain accounts locked out randomly throughout the day. Workstations have no passwords listed in credentials
management.
Suspect it is something on the workstations that is sending incorrect logon and triggering the invalid password lockout limit on domain policy. Found MSFT tools to trace in XP, but nothing for Win7. Does anyone know how to use Procmon or similiar tool to
trace such source on the workstations? Thank you.
(Procmon.exe from systernals)

Answer 1

Hi,
The user account has been automatically locked because too many invalid logon attempts or password change attempts have been requested.
We can run the LockoutStatus.exe on domain controller to identify and investigate the account lockout issue.
Troubleshooting tools:
By using this tool, we can gather and displays information about the specified user account including the domain admin's account
from all the domain controllers in the domain. In addition, the tool displays the user's badPwdCount value on each domain controller. The domain controllers that have a badPwdCount value that reflects the bad password threshold setting for the domain are the
domain controllers that are involved in the lockout. These domain controllers always include the PDC emulator operations master.
You may download the tool from the link
Download Account Lockout Status (LockoutStatus.exe)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=D1A5ED1D-CD55-4829-A189-99515B0E90F7&displaylang=en
Once we confirm the problematic computer, we can perform further research to locate the root cause. Actually, there are many possible
causes for bad password, such as cached password, schedule task, mapped drives, services, etc. Please remove the previous password cache which may be used by some applications and therefore cause the account lockout problem.
Troubleshooting steps:
1. Click Start, click Run, type "control userpasswords2" (without the quotation marks), and then click OK.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Click the "Manage Password" button.
4. Check to see if these domain account's passwords are cached. If so, remove them.
5. Check if the problem has been resolved now.
If there is any application or service is running as the problematic user account, please disable it and then check whether the problem
occurs.
For your convenience, I'd like to list the common troubleshooting steps and resolutions for account lockouts as the following:
Common Causes for Account Lockouts
To avoid false lockouts, please check each computer on which a lockout occurred for the following behaviors:
Programs:
Many programs cache credentials or keep active threads that retain the credentials after a user changes their password.
Service accounts:
Service account passwords are cached by the service control manager on member computers that use the account as well as domain controllers.
If you reset the password for a service account and you do not reset the password in the service control manager, account lockouts for the service account occur. This is because the computers that use this account typically retry logon authentication by using
the previous password. To determine whether this is occurring, look for a pattern in the Netlogon log files and in the event log files on member computers. You can then configure the service control manager to use the new password and avoid future account
lockouts.
Bad Password Threshold is set too low:
This is one of the most common misconfiguration issues. Many companies set the Bad Password Threshold registry value to a value lower
than the default value of 10. If you set this value too low, false lockouts occur when programs automatically retry passwords that are not valid. Microsoft recommends that you leave this value at its default value of 10. For more information, see "Choosing
Account Lockout Settings for Your Deployment" in this document.
User logging on to multiple computers:
A user may log onto multiple computers at one time. Programs that are running on those computers may access network resources with
the user credentials of that user who is currently logged on. If the user changes their password on one of the computers, programs that are running on the other computers may continue to use the original password. Because those programs authenticate when they
request access to network resources, the old password continues to be used and the users account becomes locked out. To ensure that this behavior does not occur, users should log off of all computers, change the password from a single location, and then log
off and back on.
Stored user names and passwords retain redundant credentials:
If any of the saved credentials are the same as the logon credential, you should delete those credentials. The credentials are redundant
because Windows tries the logon credentials when explicit credentials are not found. To delete logon credentials, use the Stored User Names and Passwords tool. For more information about Stored User Names and Passwords, see online help in Windows XP and the
Windows Server 2003 family.
Scheduled tasks:
Scheduled processes may be configured to using credentials that have expired.
Persistent drive mappings:
Persistent drives may have been established with credentials that subsequently expired. If the user types explicit credentials when
they try to connect to a share, the credential is not persistent unless it is explicitly saved by Stored User Names and Passwords. Every time that the user logs off the network, logs on to the network, or restarts the computer, the authentication attempt fails
when Windows attempts to restore the connection because there are no stored credentials. To avoid this behavior, configure net use so that is does not make persistent connections. To do this, at a command prompt, please type net use /persistent:no. Alternately,
to ensure current credentials are used for persistent drives, disconnect and reconnect the persistent drive.
Active Directory replication:
User properties must replicate between domain controllers to ensure that account lockout information is processed properly. You should
verify that proper Active Directory replication is occurring.
Disconnected Terminal Server sessions:
Disconnected Terminal Server sessions may be running a process that accesses network resources with outdated authentication information.
A disconnected session can have the same effect as a user with multiple interactive logons and cause account lockout by using the outdated credentials. The only difference between a disconnected session and a user who is logged onto multiple computers is that
the source of the lockout comes from a single computer that is running Terminal Services.
Service accounts:
By default, most computer services are configured to start in the security context of the Local System account. However, you can
manually configure a service to use a specific user account and password. If you configure a service to start with a specific user account and that accounts password is changed, the service logon property must be updated with the new password or that service
may lock out the account.
Internet Information Services:
By default, IIS uses a token-caching mechanism that locally caches user account authentication information. If lockouts are limited to users who try to gain access
to Exchange mailboxes through Outlook Web Access and IIS, you can resolve the lockout by resetting the IIS token cache. For more information, see "Mailbox Access via OWA Depends on IIS Token Cache" in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base.
MSN Messenger and Microsoft Outlook:
If a user changes their domain password through Microsoft Outlook and the computer is running MSN Messenger, the client may become locked out. To resolve this behavior,
see "MSN Messenger May Cause Domain Account Lockout After a Password Change" in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base.
For more information, please refer to the following link:
Troubleshooting Account Lockout
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc773155.aspx
Account Passwords and Policies in Windows Server 2003
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc783860.aspx
Hope this helps!
Novak