MITRE ATT&CKsub-technique
T1556.006 Multi-Factor Authentication
- Domain
- enterprise
- Tactics
- Defense Impairment, Persistence, Credential Access
- Platforms
- IaaS, Identity Provider, Linux, macOS, Office Suite, SaaS, Windows
- Version
- 2.0
- Created
- 2022-05-31
Description
Adversaries may disable or modify multi-factor authentication (MFA) mechanisms to enable persistent access to compromised accounts.
Once adversaries have gained access to a network by either compromising an account lacking MFA or by employing an MFA bypass method such as Multi-Factor Authentication Request Generation, adversaries may leverage their access to modify or completely disable MFA defenses. This can be accomplished by abusing legitimate features, such as excluding users from Azure AD Conditional Access Policies, registering a new yet vulnerable/adversary-controlled MFA method, or by manually patching MFA programs and configuration files to bypass expected functionality.
For example, modifying the Windows hosts file (`C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts`) to redirect MFA calls to localhost instead of an MFA server may cause the MFA process to fail. If a "fail open" policy is in place, any otherwise successful authentication attempt may be granted access without enforcing MFA.
Depending on the scope, goals, and privileges of the adversary, MFA defenses may be disabled for individual accounts or for all accounts tied to a larger group, such as all domain accounts in a victim's network environment.
Related
Subtechnique of · MITRE ATT&CK (1)
- T1556 Modify Authentication Process technique
Tactic · MITRE ATT&CK (3)
Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · mitigates (3)
Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · uses (4)
Referenced by CAPEC · att&ck technique (1)
- CAPEC-578 Disable Security Software attack pattern
Referenced by Compliance · mitigates (9)
- CIS-6.2 Establish an Access Revoking Process CIS Safeguard v8.1
- CIS-6.5 Require MFA for Administrative Access CIS Safeguard v8.1
- CIS-6.8 Define and Maintain Role-Based Access Control CIS Safeguard v8.1
- NIST-AC-2 Account Management NIST 800-53 control
- NIST-AC-3 Access Enforcement NIST 800-53 control
- NIST-AC-6 Least Privilege NIST 800-53 control
- NIST-IA-11 Re-authentication NIST 800-53 control
- NIST-IA-13 Identity Providers and Authorization Servers NIST 800-53 control
- NIST-IA-2 Identification and Authentication (Organizational Users) NIST 800-53 control
References
- https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/alerts/aa22-074a Russians Exploit Default MFA Protocol - CISA March 2022
- https://www.mandiant.com/media/17826 Mandiant APT42
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/governance/conditional-access-exclusion Azure AD Conditional Access Exclusions