- Tactics
- stealth, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Initial Access
- Platforms
- ESXi, Linux, macOS, Windows
- Reference
- attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1078.002
Description
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of a domain account as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion.(Citation: TechNet Credential Theft) Domain accounts are those managed by Active Directory Domain Services where access and permissions are configured across systems and services that are part of that domain. Domain accounts can cover users, administrators, and services.(Citation: Microsoft AD Accounts)
Adversaries may compromise domain accounts, some with a high level of privileges, through various means such as OS Credential Dumping or password reuse, allowing access to privileged resources of the domain.
How GTK Cyber trains on this
GTK Cyber's Threat Hunting with Data Science course teaches you to build machine-learning detections for techniques like this across the MITRE ATT&CK framework, including the stealth, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Initial Access tactic this technique falls under. Practitioner-led, focused on real detections, not memorizing technique IDs.
Related techniques
- T1006 - Direct Volume Access
- T1014 - Rootkit
- T1027 - Obfuscated Files or Information
- T1036 - Masquerading
- T1037 - Boot or Logon Initialization Scripts
- T1053 - Scheduled Task/Job
- T1055 - Process Injection
- T1068 - Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
- T1070 - Indicator Removal
- T1078 - Valid Accounts
- T1091 - Replication Through Removable Media
- T1098 - Account Manipulation