- Tactics
- Credential Access
- Platforms
- Linux, macOS, Windows
- Reference
- attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1558
Description
Adversaries may attempt to subvert Kerberos authentication by stealing or forging Kerberos tickets to enable Pass the Ticket. Kerberos is an authentication protocol widely used in modern Windows domain environments. In Kerberos environments, referred to as “realms”, there are three basic participants: client, service, and Key Distribution Center (KDC).(Citation: ADSecurity Kerberos Ring Decoder) Clients request access to a service and through the exchange of Kerberos tickets, originating from KDC, they are granted access after having successfully authenticated. The KDC is responsible for both authentication and ticket granting. Adversaries may attempt to abuse Kerberos by stealing tickets or forging tickets to enable unauthorized access.
On Windows, the built-in klist utility can be used to list and analyze cached Kerberos tickets.(Citation: Microsoft Klist)
Sub-techniques
How GTK Cyber trains on this
GTK Cyber's hands-on training programs cover detection engineering across the MITRE ATT&CK framework, including the Credential Access tactic this technique falls under. Our practitioner-led courses focus on building real detections, not just memorizing technique IDs.
Related techniques
- T1003 — OS Credential Dumping
- T1040 — Network Sniffing
- T1056 — Input Capture
- T1110 — Brute Force
- T1111 — Multi-Factor Authentication Interception
- T1187 — Forced Authentication
- T1212 — Exploitation for Credential Access
- T1528 — Steal Application Access Token
- T1539 — Steal Web Session Cookie
- T1552 — Unsecured Credentials
- T1555 — Credentials from Password Stores
- T1556 — Modify Authentication Process