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T1078 Valid Accounts

Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Compromised credentials may be used to bypass access controls placed on various resources on systems within the network and may even be used for persistent access to remote systems and externally available services, such as VPNs, Outlook Web Access, network devices, and remote desktop.1 Compromised credentials may also grant an adversary increased privilege to specific systems or access to restricted areas of the network. Adversaries may choose not to use malware or tools in conjunction with the legitimate access those credentials provide to make it harder to detect their presence.

In some cases, adversaries may abuse inactive accounts: for example, those belonging to individuals who are no longer part of an organization. Using these accounts may allow the adversary to evade detection, as the original account user will not be present to identify any anomalous activity taking place on their account.2

The overlap of permissions for local, domain, and cloud accounts across a network of systems is of concern because the adversary may be able to pivot across accounts and systems to reach a high level of access (i.e., domain or enterprise administrator) to bypass access controls set within the enterprise.3

Item Value
ID T1078
Sub-techniques T1078.001, T1078.002, T1078.003, T1078.004
Tactics TA0005, TA0003, TA0004, TA0001
Platforms Azure AD, Containers, Google Workspace, IaaS, Linux, Network, Office 365, SaaS, Windows, macOS
Permissions required Administrator, User
Version 2.6
Created 31 May 2017
Last Modified 30 March 2023

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
G0026 APT18 APT18 actors leverage legitimate credentials to log into external remote services.61
G0007 APT28 APT28 has used legitimate credentials to gain initial access, maintain access, and exfiltrate data from a victim network. The group has specifically used credentials stolen through a spearphishing email to login to the DCCC network. The group has also leveraged default manufacturer’s passwords to gain initial access to corporate networks via IoT devices such as a VOIP phone, printer, and video decoder.51525354
G0016 APT29 APT29 has used a compromised account to access an organization’s VPN infrastructure.31
G0064 APT33 APT33 has used valid accounts for initial access and privilege escalation.1819
G0087 APT39 APT39 has used stolen credentials to compromise Outlook Web Access (OWA).49
G0096 APT41 APT41 used compromised credentials to log on to other systems.1716
G0001 Axiom Axiom has used previously compromised administrative accounts to escalate privileges.41
G0008 Carbanak Carbanak actors used legitimate credentials of banking employees to perform operations that sent them millions of dollars.38
G0114 Chimera Chimera has used a valid account to maintain persistence via scheduled task.15
G0035 Dragonfly Dragonfly has compromised user credentials and used valid accounts for operations.424344
S0567 Dtrack Dtrack used hard-coded credentials to gain access to a network share.9
S0038 Duqu Adversaries can instruct Duqu to spread laterally by copying itself to shares it has enumerated and for which it has obtained legitimate credentials (via keylogging or other means). The remote host is then infected by using the compromised credentials to schedule a task on remote machines that executes the malware.14
G0051 FIN10 FIN10 has used stolen credentials to connect remotely to victim networks using VPNs protected with only a single factor.32
G0085 FIN4 FIN4 has used legitimate credentials to hijack email communications.6362
G0053 FIN5 FIN5 has used legitimate VPN, RDP, Citrix, or VNC credentials to maintain access to a victim environment.454647
G0037 FIN6 To move laterally on a victim network, FIN6 has used credentials stolen from various systems on which it gathered usernames and password hashes.282930
G0046 FIN7 FIN7 has harvested valid administrative credentials for lateral movement.39
G0061 FIN8 FIN8 has used valid accounts for persistence and lateral movement.59
G0117 Fox Kitten Fox Kitten has used valid credentials with various services during lateral movement.48
G0093 GALLIUM GALLIUM leveraged valid accounts to maintain access to a victim network.55
S0604 Industroyer Industroyer can use supplied user credentials to execute processes and stop services.12
G0004 Ke3chang Ke3chang has used credential dumpers or stealers to obtain legitimate credentials, which they used to gain access to victim accounts.22
S0599 Kinsing Kinsing has used valid SSH credentials to access remote hosts.10
G1004 LAPSUS$ LAPSUS$ has used compromised credentials and/or session tokens to gain access into a victim’s VPN, VDI, RDP, and IAMs.37
G0032 Lazarus Group Lazarus Group has used administrator credentials to gain access to restricted network segments.64
G0065 Leviathan Leviathan has obtained valid accounts to gain initial access.3536
S0362 Linux Rabbit Linux Rabbit acquires valid SSH accounts through brute force. 13
G0045 menuPass menuPass has used valid accounts including shared between Managed Service Providers and clients to move between the two environments.24252623
C0002 Night Dragon During Night Dragon, threat actors used compromised VPN accounts to gain access to victim systems.66
G0049 OilRig OilRig has used compromised credentials to access other systems on a victim network.575616
C0014 Operation Wocao During Operation Wocao, threat actors used valid VPN credentials to gain initial access.65
G0011 PittyTiger PittyTiger attempts to obtain legitimate credentials during operations.27
G1005 POLONIUM POLONIUM has used valid compromised credentials to gain access to victim environments.34
G0034 Sandworm Team Sandworm Team have used previously acquired legitimate credentials prior to attacks.50
S0053 SeaDuke Some SeaDuke samples have a module to extract email from Microsoft Exchange servers using compromised credentials.11
G0091 Silence Silence has used compromised credentials to log on to other systems and escalate privileges.20
G0122 Silent Librarian Silent Librarian has used compromised credentials to obtain unauthorized access to online accounts.21
C0024 SolarWinds Compromise During the SolarWinds Compromise, APT29 used different compromised credentials for remote access and to move laterally.676869
G0039 Suckfly Suckfly used legitimate account credentials that they dumped to navigate the internal victim network as though they were the legitimate account owner.58
G0088 TEMP.Veles TEMP.Veles has used compromised VPN accounts.33
G0027 Threat Group-3390 Threat Group-3390 actors obtain legitimate credentials using a variety of methods and use them to further lateral movement on victim networks.40
G0102 Wizard Spider Wizard Spider has used valid credentials for privileged accounts with the goal of accessing domain controllers.60

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1036 Account Use Policies Use conditional access policies to block logins from non-compliant devices or from outside defined organization IP ranges.8
M1015 Active Directory Configuration Disable legacy authentication, which does not support MFA, and require the use of modern authentication protocols instead.
M1013 Application Developer Guidance Ensure that applications do not store sensitive data or credentials insecurely. (e.g. plaintext credentials in code, published credentials in repositories, or credentials in public cloud storage).
M1027 Password Policies Applications and appliances that utilize default username and password should be changed immediately after the installation, and before deployment to a production environment.7 When possible, applications that use SSH keys should be updated periodically and properly secured.
M1026 Privileged Account Management Audit domain and local accounts as well as their permission levels routinely to look for situations that could allow an adversary to gain wide access by obtaining credentials of a privileged account. 3 5 These audits should also include if default accounts have been enabled, or if new local accounts are created that have not be authorized. Follow best practices for design and administration of an enterprise network to limit privileged account use across administrative tiers. 6
M1018 User Account Management Regularly audit user accounts for activity and deactivate or remove any that are no longer needed.
M1017 User Training Applications may send push notifications to verify a login as a form of multi-factor authentication (MFA). Train users to only accept valid push notifications and to report suspicious push notifications.

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component
DS0028 Logon Session Logon Session Creation
DS0002 User Account User Account Authentication

References

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