Nov 22 2015
The two key goals of any attack is access and persistence. This post covers elements of each. In a post-exploitation scenario where the attacker has compromised the domain or an account with delegated rights, it’s possible to dump the clear-text passwords of admins without being a Domain Admin*. This method requires the Active Directory Domain …
Sep 25 2015
Note: I presented on this AD persistence method at DerbyCon (2015). A major feature added to Mimkatz in August 2015 is “DCSync” which effectively “impersonates” a Domain Controller and requests account password data from the targeted Domain Controller. DCSync was written by Benjamin Delpy and Vincent Le Toux. The exploit method prior to DCSync was …
Feb 12 2019
This article is a cross-post from TrimarcSecurity.comOriginal article: https://www.trimarcsecurity.com/single-post/2019/02/12/Mitigating-Exchange-Permission-Paths-to-Domain-Admins-in-Active-Directory The Issue Recently a blog post was published by Dirk-jan Mollema titled “Abusing Exchange: One API call away from Domain Admin ” (https://dirkjanm.io/abusing-exchange-one-api-call-away-from-domain-admin/)which highlighted several issues with Exchange permissions and a chained attack which would likely result in a regular user with a mailbox being able to …
Oct 10 2018
At DerbyCon 8 (2018) over the weekend Will Schroeder (@Harmj0y), Lee Christensen (@Tifkin_), & Matt Nelson (@enigma0x3), spoke about the unintended risks of trusting AD. They cover a number of interesting persistence and privilege escalation methods, though one in particular caught my eye. Overview Lee figured out and presents a scenario where there’s an account …
This page is meant to be a resource for Detecting & Defending against attacks. I provide references for the attacks and a number of defense & detection techniques. Active Directory & Windows Security ATTACK AD Recon Active Directory Recon Without Admin Rights SPN Scanning – Service Discovery without Network Port Scanning Beyond Domain Admins – …
Jan 01 2018
I have been fascinated with Read-Only Domain Controllers (RODCs) since RODC was released as a new DC promotion option with Windows Server 2008. Microsoft customers wanted a DC that wasn’t really a DC. – something that could be deployed in a location that’s not physically secure and still be able to authenticate users. This post …
Aug 10 2017
Active Directory has several levels of administration beyond the Domain Admins group. In a previous post, I explored: “Securing Domain Controllers to Improve Active Directory Security” which explores ways to better secure Domain Controllers and by extension, Active Directory. For more information on Active Directory specific rights and permission review my post “Scanning for Active …
Jun 14 2017
Active Directory Recon is the new hotness since attackers, Red Teamers, and penetration testers have realized that control of Active Directory provides power over the organization. I covered ways to enumerate permissions in AD using PowerView (written by Will @harmj0y) during my Black Hat & DEF CON talks in 2016 from both a Blue Team …
Aug 13 2016
This post is a follow-up of sorts from my earlier posts on PowerShell, my PowerShell presentation at BSides Baltimore, and my presentation at DEF CON 24. Hopefully this post provides current information on PowerShell usage for both Blue and Red teams. Related posts: BSides Charm Presentation Posted: PowerShell Security: Defending the Enterprise from the Latest …
Mar 14 2016
The content in this post describes a method through which an attacker could persist administrative access to Active Directory after having Domain Admin level rights for about 5 minutes. Complete list of Sneaky Active Directory Persistence Tricks posts This post explores how an attacker could leverage the built-in Active Directory management capability called Group Policy …
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