Question

I am trying to connect to a SQL Server 2008, but I’m getting this error:

Login failed for user “xyz” because the account is currently locked
out.The system administrator can unlock it. (Microsoft SQL Server,
Error 18486)

Please check the image.

Answer 1

SQL server has local password policies. If policy is enabled which
locks down the account after X number of failed attempts then the
account is automatically locked down.This error with ‘sa’ account is
very common. sa is default administartor login available with SQL
server. So there are chances that an ousider has tried to bruteforce
your system. (This can cause even if a legitimate tries to access the
account with wrong password.Sometimes a user would have changed the
password without informing others.)

If you know another admin account, you can unlock it using this query,

ALTER LOGIN sa WITH PASSWORD='password' UNLOCK

Read more on this link.