Skip to content

T1552.006 Group Policy Preferences

Adversaries may attempt to find unsecured credentials in Group Policy Preferences (GPP). GPP are tools that allow administrators to create domain policies with embedded credentials. These policies allow administrators to set local accounts.2

These group policies are stored in SYSVOL on a domain controller. This means that any domain user can view the SYSVOL share and decrypt the password (using the AES key that has been made public).3

The following tools and scripts can be used to gather and decrypt the password file from Group Policy Preference XML files:

  • Metasploit’s post exploitation module: post/windows/gather/credentials/gpp
  • Get-GPPPassword1
  • gpprefdecrypt.py

On the SYSVOL share, adversaries may use the following command to enumerate potential GPP XML files: dir /s * .xml

Item Value
ID T1552.006
Sub-techniques T1552.001, T1552.002, T1552.003, T1552.004, T1552.005, T1552.006, T1552.007, T1552.008
Tactics TA0006
Platforms Windows
Version 1.1
Created 11 February 2020
Last Modified 24 October 2025

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
G0064 APT33 APT33 has used a variety of publicly available tools like Gpppassword to gather credentials.1011
S0194 PowerSploit PowerSploit contains a collection of Exfiltration modules that can harvest credentials from Group Policy Preferences.89
S0692 SILENTTRINITY SILENTTRINITY has a module that can extract cached GPP passwords.7
G0102 Wizard Spider Wizard Spider has used PowerShell cmdlets Get-GPPPassword and Find-GPOPassword to find unsecured credentials in a compromised network group policy.12

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1015 Active Directory Configuration Remove vulnerable Group Policy Preferences.6
M1047 Audit Search SYSVOL for any existing GGPs that may contain credentials and remove them.4
M1051 Update Software Apply patch KB2962486 which prevents credentials from being stored in GPPs.45

References

  1. Campbell, C. (2012, May 24). GPP Password Retrieval with PowerShell. Retrieved April 11, 2018. ↩

  2. Microsoft. (2016, August 31). Group Policy Preferences. Retrieved March 9, 2020. ↩

  3. Microsoft. (n.d.). 2.2.1.1.4 Password Encryption. Retrieved April 11, 2018. ↩

  4. Sean Metcalf. (2015, December 28). Finding Passwords in SYSVOL & Exploiting Group Policy Preferences. Retrieved February 17, 2020. ↩↩

  5. Microsoft. (2014, May 13). MS14-025: Vulnerability in Group Policy Preferences could allow elevation of privilege. Retrieved February 17, 2020. ↩

  6. Microsoft. (2014, May 13). MS14-025: Vulnerability in Group Policy Preferences could allow elevation of privilege. Retrieved January 28, 2015. ↩

  7. Salvati, M. (2019, August 6). SILENTTRINITY Modules. Retrieved March 24, 2022. ↩

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

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

  10. Security Response attack Investigation Team. (2019, March 27). Elfin: Relentless Espionage Group Targets Multiple Organizations in Saudi Arabia and U.S.. Retrieved April 10, 2019. ↩

  11. Ackerman, G., et al. (2018, December 21). OVERRULED: Containing a Potentially Destructive Adversary. Retrieved January 17, 2019. ↩

  12. Shilko, J., et al. (2021, October 7). FIN12: The Prolific Ransomware Intrusion Threat Actor That Has Aggressively Pursued Healthcare Targets. Retrieved June 15, 2023. ↩