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T1550 Use Alternate Authentication Material

Adversaries may use alternate authentication material, such as password hashes, Kerberos tickets, and application access tokens, in order to move laterally within an environment and bypass normal system access controls.

Authentication processes generally require a valid identity (e.g., username) along with one or more authentication factors (e.g., password, pin, physical smart card, token generator, etc.). Alternate authentication material is legitimately generated by systems after a user or application successfully authenticates by providing a valid identity and the required authentication factor(s). Alternate authentication material may also be generated during the identity creation process.23

Caching alternate authentication material allows the system to verify an identity has successfully authenticated without asking the user to reenter authentication factor(s). Because the alternate authentication must be maintained by the system—either in memory or on disk—it may be at risk of being stolen through Credential Access techniques. By stealing alternate authentication material, adversaries are able to bypass system access controls and authenticate to systems without knowing the plaintext password or any additional authentication factors.

Item Value
ID T1550
Sub-techniques T1550.001, T1550.002, T1550.003, T1550.004
Tactics TA0005, TA0008
Platforms Containers, IaaS, Identity Provider, Linux, Office Suite, SaaS, Windows
Version 1.5
Created 30 January 2020
Last Modified 24 October 2025

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
S0661 FoggyWeb FoggyWeb can allow abuse of a compromised AD FS server’s SAML token.6
C0024 SolarWinds Compromise During the SolarWinds Compromise, APT29 used forged SAML tokens that allowed the actors to impersonate users and bypass MFA, enabling APT29 to access enterprise cloud applications and services.78

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1036 Account Use Policies Where possible, consider restricting the use of authentication material outside of expected contexts.
M1015 Active Directory Configuration Configure Active Directory to prevent use of certain techniques; use SID Filtering, etc.
M1013 Application Developer Guidance Consider implementing token binding strategies, such as Azure AD token protection or OAuth Proof of Possession, that cryptographically bind a token to a secret. This may prevent the token from being used without knowledge of the secret or possession of the device the token is tied to.45
M1047 Audit Perform audits or scans of systems, permissions, insecure software, insecure configurations, etc. to identify potential weaknesses.
M1027 Password Policies Set and enforce secure password policies for accounts.
M1026 Privileged Account Management Limit credential overlap across systems to prevent the damage of credential compromise and reduce the adversary’s ability to perform Lateral Movement between systems.
M1018 User Account Management Enforce the principle of least-privilege. Do not allow a domain user to be in the local administrator group on multiple systems.

References

  1. Microsoft. (2016, April 15). Audit Policy Recommendations. Retrieved June 3, 2016. ↩

  2. NIST. (n.d.). Authentication. Retrieved January 30, 2020. ↩

  3. NIST. (n.d.). Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Retrieved September 25, 2024. ↩

  4. Microsoft. (2023, October 23). Conditional Access: Token protection (preview). Retrieved January 2, 2024. ↩

  5. Venkat Viswanathan. (2023, June 13). A leap forward in token security: Okta adds support for DPoP. Retrieved January 2, 2024. ↩

  6. Ramin Nafisi. (2021, September 27). FoggyWeb: Targeted NOBELIUM malware leads to persistent backdoor. Retrieved October 4, 2021. ↩

  7. Microsoft 365 Defender Team. (2020, December 28). Using Microsoft 365 Defender to protect against Solorigate. Retrieved January 7, 2021. ↩

  8. Secureworks CTU. (n.d.). IRON RITUAL. Retrieved February 24, 2022. ↩