Account lockout policies primarily prevent which type of attack?

Account lockout policies are designed to protect systems from unauthorized access by temporarily disabling accounts after a certain number of failed login attempts. This approach is particularly effective against brute force attacks, where an attacker systematically guesses passwords in an attempt to gain unauthorized access.

By implementing account lockout policies, organizations can mitigate the risk associated with these types of attacks. Once an account is locked, the attacker is unable to make further attempts to guess the password without intervention from an administrator, thus significantly increasing the time and effort required to compromise an account.

While other forms of attacks, such as phishing, social engineering, and insider threats, pose significant risks to security, they do not rely on the brute-force method of entering multiple login attempts. Hence, the primary focus of account lockout policies is to thwart brute force attacks.