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T1547.005 Security Support Provider

Adversaries may abuse security support providers (SSPs) to execute DLLs when the system boots. Windows SSP DLLs are loaded into the Local Security Authority (LSA) process at system start. Once loaded into the LSA, SSP DLLs have access to encrypted and plaintext passwords that are stored in Windows, such as any logged-on user’s Domain password or smart card PINs.

The SSP configuration is stored in two Registry keys: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\Security Packages and HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\OSConfig\Security Packages. An adversary may modify these Registry keys to add new SSPs, which will be loaded the next time the system boots, or when the AddSecurityPackage Windows API function is called.1

Item Value
ID T1547.005
Sub-techniques T1547.001, T1547.002, T1547.003, T1547.004, T1547.005, T1547.006, T1547.007, T1547.008, T1547.009, T1547.010, T1547.012, T1547.013, T1547.014, T1547.015
Tactics TA0003, TA0004
Platforms Windows
Permissions required Administrator
Version 1.0
Created 24 January 2020
Last Modified 25 March 2020

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
S0363 Empire Empire can enumerate Security Support Providers (SSPs) as well as utilize PowerSploit‘s Install-SSP and Invoke-Mimikatz to install malicious SSPs and log authentication events.4
S0002 Mimikatz The Mimikatz credential dumper contains an implementation of an SSP.3
S0194 PowerSploit PowerSploit‘s Install-SSP Persistence module can be used to establish by installing a SSP DLL.56

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1025 Privileged Process Integrity Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, and later versions may make LSA run as a Protected Process Light (PPL) by setting the Registry key HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\RunAsPPL, which requires all SSP DLLs to be signed by Microsoft. 1 2

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component
DS0017 Command Command Execution
DS0011 Module Module Load
DS0024 Windows Registry Windows Registry Key Modification

References

  1. Graeber, M. (2014, October). Analysis of Malicious Security Support Provider DLLs. Retrieved March 1, 2017. ↩↩

  2. Microsoft. (2013, July 31). Configuring Additional LSA Protection. Retrieved June 24, 2015. ↩

  3. Deply, B. (n.d.). Mimikatz. Retrieved September 29, 2015. ↩

  4. Schroeder, W., Warner, J., Nelson, M. (n.d.). Github PowerShellEmpire. Retrieved April 28, 2016. ↩

  5. PowerShellMafia. (2012, May 26). PowerSploit - A PowerShell Post-Exploitation Framework. Retrieved February 6, 2018. ↩

  6. PowerSploit. (n.d.). PowerSploit. Retrieved February 6, 2018. ↩