Steal or Forge Kerberos Tickets (T1558)

Tactic: Credential Access

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 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 Credential Access tactic this technique falls under. Practitioner-led, focused on real detections, not memorizing technique IDs.

Threat Hunting with Data Science → · All training courses

Related techniques

Train your team to detect attacks like this.

GTK Cyber's Threat Hunting with Data Science course is taught by practitioners who detect this stuff for a living.

Explore Threat Hunting Training