CAPEC-560 Use of Known Domain Credentials

An adversary guesses or obtains (i.e. steals or purchases) legitimate credentials (e.g. userID/password) to achieve authentication and to perform authorized actions under the guise of an authenticated user or service.

Attacks leveraging trusted credentials typically result in the adversary laterally moving within the local network, since users are often allowed to login to systems/applications within the network using the same password. This further allows the adversary to obtain sensitive data, download/install malware on the system, pose as a legitimate user for social engineering purposes, and more. Attacks on known passwords generally rely on the primary fact that users often reuse the same username/password combination for a variety of systems, applications, and services, coupled with poor password policies on the target system or application. Adversaries can also utilize known passwords to target Single Sign On (SSO) or cloud-based applications and services, which often don't verify the authenticity of the user's input. Known credentials are usually obtained by an adversary via a system/application breach and/or by purchasing dumps of credentials on the dark web. These credentials may be further gleaned via exposed configuration and properties files that contain system passwords, database connection strings, and other sensitive data.

1. [Explore] [Acquire known credentials] The adversary must obtain known credentials in order to access the target system, application, or service. 2. [Explore] [Determine target's password policy] Determine the password policies of the target system/application to determine if the known credentials fit within the specified criteria. 3. [Experiment] [Attempt authentication] Try each credential until the target grants access. 4. [Exploit] [Impersonate] An adversary can use successful experiments or authentications to impersonate an authorized user or system, or to laterally move within a system or application 5. [Exploit] [Spoofing] Malicious data can be injected into the target system or into a victim user's system by an adversary. The adversary can also pose as a legitimate user to perform social engineering attacks. 6. [Exploit] [Data Exfiltration] The adversary can obtain sensitive data contained within the system or application.

• The system/application uses one factor password based authentication, SSO, and/or cloud-based authentication. • The system/application does not have a sound password policy that is being enforced. • The system/application does not implement an effective password throttling mechanism. • The adversary possesses a list of known user accounts and corresponding passwords that may exist on the target.

• [Low] Once an adversary obtains a known credential, leveraging it is trivial.

• Confidentiality, Access Control, Authentication: Gain Privileges • Confidentiality, Authorization: Read Data • Integrity: Modify Data

• Leverage multi-factor authentication for all authentication services and prior to granting an entity access to the domain network. • Create a strong password policy and ensure that your system enforces this policy. • Ensure users are not reusing username/password combinations for multiple systems, applications, or services. • Do not reuse local administrator account credentials across systems. • Deny remote use of local admin credentials to log into domain systems. • Do not allow accounts to be a local administrator on more than one system. • Implement an intelligent password throttling mechanism. Care must be taken to assure that these mechanisms do not excessively enable account lockout attacks such as CAPEC-2. • Monitor system and domain logs for abnormal credential access.